Connectivity Starts at Home [Bits versus Electrons]
Bob Frankston · IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine · 2021
Your computers and devices all interconnect locally. In a sense, the larger Internet is just one more connected device. You are free to innovate and experiment without asking a provider's permission. In my first column, I wrote about refactoring consumer electronics [See B. Frankston, "Refactoring consumer electronics [soapbox]", ibid., vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 26-31, Jan. 2013]. We can focus on what we are trying to accomplish without building a separate infrastructure for each application. The Internet is based on the powerful idea of bestefforts connectivity. By that, I mean that all packets are treated the same - you cannot buy special treatment or any guarantee that any particular packet will arrive at its destination. In this article, I am distinguishing between the particular protocols and policies of the Internet, and the larger concepts.