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I mean, it's not the most technically accurate description, but to a layman its a pretty good approximation of the Internet's structure. Consider the full quote.

Ted Stevens wrote:They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

I mean, what he's saying is that many people running high bandwidth stuff over the Internet's backbone will slow things down for everyone. I don't agree with his policies, but it seems to me he actually has some idea about how the Internet works, which is more than I can say about most people.

Yogi wrote:I mean, it's not the most technically accurate description, but to a layman its a pretty good approximation of the Internet's structure. Consider the full quote.

Ted Stevens wrote:They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

I mean, what he's saying is that many people running high bandwidth stuff over the Internet's backbone will slow things down for everyone. I don't agree with his policies, but it seems to me he actually has some idea about how the Internet works, which is more than I can say about most people.

Because he heads the committee that controls and sets policy for the internet and the only way he knows how to explain the internet is "It's not a truck! It's a series of tubes!"

Have you, or anyone you know, had a message delayed because someone put enormous amounts of material in the tubes?

He could have come out and said that Telecoms don't want to invest money in larger pipes, so if they could restrict what goes through the pipes, the problem would go away (for the Telecoms). But you know, he doesn't want to seem like he only cares about the poor, disenfranchised telecoms.

I don't suppose there's a source for this?

Uhm, the senate..?
Watch this, mmkay?

InnocentBystander wrote:Have you, or anyone you know, had a message delayed because someone put enormous amounts of material in the tubes?

Mailservers can have delayed messages due to the stupendous amount of data they get (mostly spam). Congestion can also increase latency for everyone and IIRC, much of the dark fibre layed down during the dot com boom is being used up (even with nifty things like WDM)

Watch this too

Destructionator XIII wrote:

InnocentBystander wrote:Have you, or anyone you know, had a message delayed because someone put enormous amounts of material in the tubes?

Yes, I have, very often. Have you ever used dial-up?

But even with broadband, there are definite limits, and when those limits hit, messages get dropped, and transmitted again later: delay.

When he first said it, I defended it. The other thing he said though, about 'your own personal Internet being sent out' is pretty silly, and I attacked him for that.

The series of tubes quote is a simplification, yes, but not an inaccurate one.

I found it funny, more than anything. Of course the description was pretty accurate, but watching the video you get the impression that he really can't wrap his head around exactly what the internet is. He really shouldn't be the head of that Senate committee.

Destructionator XIII wrote:

InnocentBystander wrote:Have you, or anyone you know, had a message delayed because someone put enormous amounts of material in the tubes?

Yes, I have, very often. Have you ever used dial-up?

But even with broadband, there are definite limits, and when those limits hit, messages get dropped, and transmitted again later: delay.

When he first said it, I defended it. The other thing he said though, about 'your own personal Internet being sent out' is pretty silly, and I attacked him for that.

The series of tubes quote is a simplification, yes, but not an inaccurate one.

Your own crappy dial-up would be your 'personal internet', which isn't the problem.

It sounds to me like the backbones could use some breathing room; charging money for priority would give them time and the money the upgrade the infrastructure. Of course they could simply pony up the money, but the mutli-tier'd service they are suggesting is far more profitable.

I don't know enough about the legalities involved to know this for sure, but isn't it true that as it stands, Internet providers are not responsible for the 'data' transmitted over their lines becasue they don't regulate it in any way?
Therefore, couldn't the arguement be made that once they begin regulating what data gets to move at which speed (and by extension, what data gets to move at all), that they can becoem liable for the transmission of things like... Child pornography?
Or does it not workt hat way at all?

In all honesty, if I was trying to describe how the internet works to someone that had no understanding of network technology I'd probably user similar terms.

It wasn't the limited-capacity tube analogy that was absurd (although it's very easy to make fun of), it's the notion that there are multiple internets that belong to individuals and they can be sent from one person to another.

Describing the Internet as a series of tubes is a bit simplistic for the head of that committee, but confusing "internet" and "electronic mail" and using the terms interchangably is a symptom of Senile Old Man Syndrome.

An Old Alaskan Prospector wrote:Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

phongn wrote:

InnocentBystander wrote:Have you, or anyone you know, had a message delayed because someone put enormous amounts of material in the tubes?

Mailservers can have delayed messages due to the stupendous amount of data they get (mostly spam). Congestion can also increase latency for everyone and IIRC, much of the dark fibre layed down during the dot com boom is being used up (even with nifty things like WDM)

But the issue isn't with any form of pipe or backbone. Once you've established a connection to the mail server, all data is transmitted directly to that server. If all the data isn't received, you get an error and your e-mail will never make it to your recepient. So any issues related to late e-mails is a problem with the server itself.

By his definition, his e-mail packets just circulated the Internet for 24 hours, then got to their destination. It doesn't work that way. You don't need a degree in Network Technology to run a commitee, but you should at least know the basics on how the damn thing works. Someone needs to sign his ass up for some free classes Cisco and 3Com offer all the time.

Darth Raptor wrote:Describing the Internet as a series of tubes is a bit simplistic for the head of that committee, but confusing "internet" and "electronic mail" and using the terms interchangably is a symptom of Senile Old Man Syndrome.

Actually, it's a fairly understandable extension of Clueless User Disease. Using technical names for the wrong thing.

The most common is calling a desktop computer a "modem", or occasionally hard drive.

People do this all the time. Albeit not people with significant responsibility for the way technical things are supposed to actually work. 95% of computer owners or users have absolutely no idea how they work, what bits of them are called, or even how to perform the most basic of operations (The idea that one can click and drag icons to copy and paste things, or even copy and paste at all is scary and magic to the huge majority of people who operate computers daily)