On Aug 31, 2005, at 7:24 PM, Peter wrote:
>>  Packet switching is much easier than the circuit switching
>> required by current phone technology, even if it IS digital.
>
> ...only because the reliability and latency requirements are lower ?!

Maybe.  I don't BELIEVE that's the case.  With packet switched 
technology,
you can build a backbone infrastructure that is reliable (by most
possible definitions) in spite of individual components that are not
reliable (that's what TCP/IP was all about, though I doubt that most
modern networks are vert true to the ideal...) (And alas, this does
not stop would be customers from demanding the individual components
be extremely reliable as well, driving up the price.  But that's good
for our bottom line, IIRC, so I shouldn't complain too much!)

There is a lot of interest in latency/QoS for packet networks (again
driving up prices), but it's not clear to me to what extent that is
truly important, especially when it seems to be much easier to step
up bandwidth of packet links compared to TDM-style links (consider
ISDN vs DSL, for instance.  Or token ring vs ethernet (guaranteed
latency used to be a big selling point for 4mbit and 16mbit token
ring networks.  Ethernet was "too unpredictable."  And then came
100Mbit ethernet..))

BillW
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