This could sound like a very naive question, but I'd like a straight answer, however stupid I may sound.

Why is internet access so complicated compared to telephone network?
Telephone network - you need a telephone, and some sort of connection. In the case of landlines this connection is always there when you want it, and incredibly reliable.

Internet access - there seem to be 1001 things that can go wrong and stop you connecting, I'm not gonna spell them out you will all know from experience the number of things that can screw it up.

So is this

1 Because it is relatively new technology
2 Because companies think it is in their interest to keep the layman bewildered
3 Beacause it is a fundamental thing about internet acces that there are lots of things that can go wrong

IMO and I've worked in computers 20 years it really amounts to number 3 on your list. A telephone can only be used as a telephone, unless you want to use it to hammer nails in:D An internet connection however relies heavily on a multi-function device (the PC), this can be configured in an almost endless number of ways and its this that makes it more complex.

Take my advice and once you've got it working don't mess about:thumbsup:

Cheers

Mark

What he said! A PC and Internet connection are about a million times more complex then a telephone. There are so many things that can go wrong. Also people are pretty well trained in using a phone, pick it up dial numbers, it's not that hard. On the other hand people in general don't know much about PCs and tinkering with them often causes no end of problems.

A Million? is there not just a slight hint of exaggeration there?

Anyway, I am not suggesting that a telephone and a pc are as simple as each other. I am posibly a little more advanced in knowledge of the internet than my initial post suggested, I was playing the innocent a bit.


I know I am not well informed enough to say this, BUT, I think that in the future internet access will be simplified and become a lot more reliable.

The past is littered with people saying "oh, you couldn't possibly make that simpler, you don't understand why it has to be like this"

A million would probably be an under-estimate of how many things could go wrong! There are about a million things that could go wrong simply whith the TCP/IP protocol alone.

I wasn't meaning to insult your knowledge of the Internet, sorry if it came accoss like that.

No, wasn't insulted at all.

I think what I'm getting at is for example when JFK handed some money out and banged a few heads together, it was made damn sure that there was a moon landing by the end of the 60s when it looked pretty unlikely at the time.

So basically I reckon if some money was thrown at it, and a lot of heads were banged together, things that seem like big hurdles can be broken down surprisingly quickly.

Just a comment on human nature I guess, inspried by the fact that my computer is causing me a lot of headaches at the moment.

And, no, I havent just been pressing a few buttons to see what happens, I know I am pretty uninformed when it comes to internet connection and I haven't been playing around with any settings, honest!!!

If anything it is because of the money that is been thrown at the internet it is so complicated. It is moving at such a pace that there isn't time to iron out every single problem before something else comes along and takes away the focus.

The internet and PCs are always going to be complicated be grateful of the fact that your home PC sits nicely under your desk and doesn't take up your whole front room and have loads of levers and buttons all over it as it would if things hadn't progressed as much as they have.

Bill gates once said no PC will ever need more than 512kb of RAM most PCs now come with over a thousand times that, really I think we are moving forward to quickly and that's why it is so complicated!!

I think the problem is that the same machine is bought by both nerdy types and your less sophisticated users. If it was simpler, just a machine for games and surfing, then the afficionados wouldn't be able to tinker and would become quickly bored.

I can remember feeling that computing had become slightly undervalued when Toys r' Us started selling PCs.

Your comparison between the space race and the internet is not valid. The rockets that were built were done so for a single purpose. This is why I believe that at the moment normal internet connections are complicated, because the vast majority use multi-function devices. It will be quite easy to simply this by haveing a device that can only be used for accessing the internet. Such a 'black box' would simplify internet access but I doubt if there is a large market fot it, after all most homes now have PCs that can do the job adequately.

There has been a lot of interest in teh idea of an internet 'dial tone', whereby you'd plug some sort of Internet Appliance in to a 'socket' of some sort that would then connect to the system like a phone does when it's plugged in.

First issue is the 'socket' - in the early days of teh telephone system there was a lot of point to point wiring and calls were placed by manual exchanges and operators. This led on to trunk dialling and automated exchanges, but you still needed a wire to every house, which hasn't changed much to this day.

To provide the Internet dial tone type system, you'd need something similar that connects every house to the Net, and deals with billing, etc. in the same way that the phone system does today.

As has been said, the PC that currently provides access is quite complex and the TCP/IP protocols involved are fiddly - they work amazingly well at doing things they were never intended for - a bit like the problems of running broadband across telephone circuits that were never designed for it. An Internet Applicance would probably end up looking awfully like a PC, because the Internet is effectively a delivery system for programs and media - not an end to itself. What you do with a phone is fairly limited - with a Net enabled computer I can play games, read the news, send mail, use it as a phone, watch films and video, listen to the radio - the list goes on.

The Internet and associated Internet APplicances will never be as simple and reliable as the phone system because the complexities are several oredrs of magnitude higher.

Joe

Joe,
thanks that made a lot of sense.

Sanman, it seems to me you agree that internet connections are not as reliable as we would like them to be. Admitting there is a problem is the first step to solving it.
There is surely a big market out there somewhere for a more simplified system. I don't fully (or slightly) understand TCP/IP, but is there not the potential of some alternative? surely you must admit that we are not going to be stuck with the current system forever? - eg in a pretty short period of time VHS will be no more, replaced by DVD.

What is needed is some (to use a terrible cliche) out of the box thinking. I don't expect any of you lot to know what it might be. But believe me, it will happen.

There is a new version of the protocols coming along that will increase the available addresses big time. There are also some aspects of the protocols that aren't yet in use - for example, there is scope within the data structures used in the protocol to prioritise packets of data, or even charge for data packets.

However, for these to work effectively there'd have to be widespread agreement between everyone that provides internet connectivity to implement them.

This is where the problems lie, I guess - establishing the widespread agreement an dimplementing costly changes when there is no 'overarching' authority.

I doubt that the TCP/IP protocol will be thrown out unless soemthing REALLY major requires it. Too much infrastructure runs on it and it isn't that bad - most of the problems are that it was never designed for teh widescale use and applications it's being used for.

A broadband connection is pretty easy to implement now, as are wireless networks. Perhaps a Linux based Internet Appliance running normal protocols and updatable by a CDROM you stick in it's only slot would provide a means of access for people uncomfortable with the technology in PCs. Think limited functionality, dedicated to communication / entertainment, built in firewall, configured by a CDROM you get when you sign up with your ISP. The software environment can be totally controlled (many problems on PCs are due to other things being installed, uninstalled, messed about with, etc. Then have your 'dial tone' supplied by broadband with the ISPs putting in anti-virus and spam stuff at their end.

Not much different from what is possible today, but just totally control the software side of it.

Joe

Yodameister

Joe has got this spot on, it's extremely inlikely that TCP/IP will be superceded. The protocol is developing and becoming even more complex, however this complexity is largely hidden from us so its not something to really worry about. To be honest it shouldn't be that difficult to get an intenet connection working, you just have to work through the basic steps.

Cheers

Mark

The biggest problem of Dial-up Networking for internet access is its vulnerability to hacking.

While sorting out a friend's machine last week I found five spyware diallers sitting in his DUN folder. One of these was taking over after just a few minutes into his regular connection and preventing him from updating his AV definition file and consequently he had accumulated a fair number of malware apps on his system. It only took me a couple of hours to sort it out but I'm just hoping one of those diallers wasn't this one....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1253103,00.html


...or he could be in for a nasty shock when he gets his phone bill.

I'm strictly an amateur when it comes to computer stuff but if I'm asked for help I generally advise switching from IE/OE to Mozilla, - quite painless if you follow the instuctions; and also have at least two AV prgrams available. If you've already paid for Norton AV or MacAfee, do pay for the updates. There are at least two good freeware AV programs that can be run for additional ad hoc scans, - AVG and F-Prot...and both have easy to use auto-update facilities.

A firewall is often advised but these are generally too complicated and time consuming for casual users (including me) to configure correctly.