Is "end-to-end" useful as an Internet design principle or a regulatory principle?
Sandvig, C. (forthcoming). Shaping Infrastructure and Innovation on the Internet: The End-to-End Network that isn't (link to draft version). In D. Guston & D. Sarewitz (eds.), Shaping Science and Technology Policy: The Next Generation of Research. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Abstract:
This study approaches the question of how we should best reason about the design of communication infrastructures by examining a particular debate about the Internet. Some argue that the Internet's gift to innovation is found in an obscure design feature called its "end-to-end" design. This paper reviews the technical and public policy debate about end-to-end design, and compares the Internet's design to other communication networks from the ancient world to the present. It concludes that the critical societal problems for network design and innovation (such as transparency, participation, and flexibility) are not necessarily linked to the end-to-end design principle, and that the use of technical arguments like end-to-end as a proxy for normative arguments is a dangerous strategy.
Tags: end-to-end, infrastructure, innovation, internet (See all possible tags)
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I've just read Christian Sandvig (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) Shaping Infrastructure and Innovation on the The End-to-End Network that Isn't. [Read More]
[Tracked on March 28, 2006 10:38 PM]