[e2e] a means to an end

[Fred Baker]

On Nov 9, 2008, at 11:05 AM, David P. Reed wrote:
> I'm completely confused by the suggestions from Fred and Noel that
> 802.11 802.1, MPLS are somehow competing with the current IP routing
> system.  None of those are end-to-end solutions, ...

Depends on your viewpoint. There are those that think of them as end  
to end solutions in some stated domain. In Beijing during the last  
week of October I visited a school that literally was proposing MPLS- 
on-Ethernet as an end-to-end solution.

The reason I mentioned them is this. You noted that the Internet was  
designed as a network of networks, and IP was the ring to bind them.  
True enough. We have two variations on that in the present Internet.  
One is that we literally have separate networks connected through a  
collection of backbone networks, often by means of network address  
translators or other gateways. The other is that the IP protocol  
usually runs atop some lower layer (what I call "intranet", what  
others inexplicably call "layer 2") networks, including various  
extended LAN, circuit switch, and virtual circuit networks.

To my way of thinking, whether you mean this in an infrastructure  
sense, and administrative sense, or a routing protocol sense, the  
Internet is very much a network of networks.

> Is the confusion between the limited scope of 802.11 and 802.16 and  
> the
> planet-scale scope of IP addressing really prevalent among the  
> community?
>
> Maybe this explains why so many seem to confuse the hardware and  
> cabling
> with networking.   KInd of like confusing the Intel instruction set  
> with
> the Win32 API, or confusing the workings of the marketplace with the
> resolution of social issues.
>
> Fred Baker wrote:
>>
>> On Nov 9, 2008, at 4:31 AM, David P. Reed wrote:
>>
>>> why not multiple competing "routing" layers?
>>
>> We have those, in spades. Consider 802.11, 802.1, 802.16, ATM and  
>> its predecessors, etc.
>>
>