[Chapter-delegates] ] Unfortunately, the Internet Impact Toolkit is unsound

[Richard Hill]

Sorry, I just realized that I had been posting to the wrong list, I have now corrected that.

Thank you for your comments and please see my embedded comment below.

Thanks and best,
Rihcard

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Levine [mailto:isocmember at johnlevine.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, 9 September, 2020 20:49
> To: internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org
> Cc: rhill at hill-a.ch
> Subject: Re: [Internet Policy] [Chapter-delegates] Unfortunately, the
> Internet Impact Toolkit is unsound
> 
> In article <031d01d686ca$89d19d60$9d74d820$@ch>,
> Richard Hill via InternetPolicy <rhill at hill-a.ch> wrote:
> >I don't understand this comment. The phone systems uses common
> underlying
> >protocols to connect (and a global naming and addressing scheme). Can
> you
> >please clarify?
> 
> Actually, they don't. The signalling in North America is different
> from signalling other places. (That's related to why North American
> phone numbers have a fixed 3+3+4-digit format, and other places they're
> different lengths.)

You lost me here. I believe that all mobile networks use SS7. I agree that the length of the E.164 numbers differs, but that's part of the common naming scheme, just as variable length domain names is part of the Internet's common naming scheme. E.212 IMSIs and Q.709 SANCs (telephony addresses) are fixed-length, as are IP addresses.

> 
> There is a common-ish numbering scheme, but to make things work there
> are gateways for voice and SMS that let you call between the US and
> other continents. If you wanted to build some other service on top of
> that signalling, you'd need a new set of gateways. That will never
> happen because mobile phones now all support IP and that's where the
> new services are built.

Again, you lost me. I believe that all the GSM networks interconnect directly.

> 
> As far as gateways go, I have a 1994 book called:
> 
>   !%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing & Networks, 4th
> edition
> 
> It spends over 600 pages describing networks all over the world, what
> mail and related services they provided, and what kludges you had to
> use to get your mail from one to another. 

Indeed. Even before that, I was personally involved in implementing email gateways. But that has nothing to do with telephone networks, it has to do with applications built on top of the data networks of the time.

>That was the last edition of
> that book because shortly afterward, everyone connected to the
> Internet and adopted Internet naming and mail transfer protocols.

Note that there is no common naming system for the portion of Internet email addresses that comes before the @ sign.