A NETWORK OF NETWORKS

Another popular misconception is that the Internet is an isolated infrastructure, like cable TV or the phone system. Some believe that today’s communications infrastructures will retain their unique identities, that consumers will continue to expect them to be different and disconnected. Others, including myself, believe that all communications networks are converging and that formerly disconnected technologies will interoperate with one another.
As indicated earlier, the real value of networks is realized from their interconnections. The term Internet is a contraction of inter-networking. The value of the Internet and other communications infrastructures such as cable or broadcast TV increases when they are interconnected. Just as today’s Web servers pull content from multiple interconnected servers scattered around the country or world, it is quite feasible to pull content from multiple interconnected infrastructures. For example, cable or broadcast TV can deliver high-quality digital media experiences to a local cache. When this content is viewed, the appliance may use an Internet back-channel to update the information in the cache, to connect to links embedded in the content, or to facilitate transactions, like buying the product that is being advertised.
Because of its “open architecture” and the culture in which it has evolved, the Internet has become a crude prototype for the digital media infrastructures of the future. Internet standards are beginning to influence other digital media infrastructures, just as those media have influenced the content delivered via the Internet. It comes as no surprise that many of the entrenched media interests have been trying to resist the Internet tide by keeping various aspects of their infrastructure isolated, and by developing proprietary standards that keep their customers locked up inside a walled garden.
The impact of closed or proprietary systems on content creators is enormous. Multiple versions of the same content may be required, not to mention the need for proprietary tools to create each version. This approach inhibits the pace of evolution; the need for interoperable solutions is more obvious every day, and slowly the barriers that have been erected to delay convergence are falling.