The Importance of IP Infrastructure

The goal of the Internet was initially to interconnect local networks around the world. The term itself applies to the collection of networks that share a common Internet Protocol, or IP. The need to span disparate networks has the benefit of forcing designers to shed the design assumptions implicit in networks built for local needs.

Traditionally, applications that required connectivity, such as the telephone and television systems, required an infrastructure built for that purpose. In order to provide telephone service, you first had to make major investments in physical plant and in special hardware at the end points (telephones). In order to create the television industry, we had to standardize every aspect of how cameras and televisions worked and how they exchanged signals. Both were amazing engineering feats in their times, but the interdependencies between the elements of the system has made change exceedingly difficult.

IP eliminates the interdependencies by separating expensive communications infrastructure from the applications that are built on it. Rather than buying a word processor, we are used to buying a computer and adding word processing as a software application. We can shop for the best computer and then buy the best word processing software. Microsoft's success is due to focusing on the software and letting others innovate on the hardware.

Current communications networks do more than transport data, they take responsibility for the meaning of the traffic. For example, the telephone network "knows" that it is transporting a phone conversation. At any point, you know how to interpret the signal and listen to it. We've had to disguise data traffic as a conversation in order to pass it through this network.

In the IP infrastructure, there are just bits. There are not telephony packets or video packets. There are just packets. Telephony, like word processing, is just an application that runs outside the infrastructure and just uses IP packets for connectivity. A term like "Internet Telephony" sounds precise, but there is no one standard, just a set of conventions with some more common than others. Traditional telephony depended upon precise conformance to standards. The IP infrastructure can be shared without imposing such restrictions.

Since there is no semantics associated with the information within the network, one cannot regulate it and one cannot censor it. Of course, one can try, since it is possible to guess at the semantics. This is typically done by placing gatekeepers at the edges. For example, watching traffic on dial-up connections to assure that no one can access web pages deemed inappropriate.

The economic value of the IP infrastructure is in creating a marketplace for innovation and discovery.

Airvenue's Propositions

Airvenue proposes to

(a) supply the products, solutions and services for building out IP infrastructure in any area and space by employing the best-of-breed and best-of-class fixed wireless and satellite-based communication technologies

(b)provide solutions and managed services for local and global data, voice and video communication, and video surveillance built on wireless and satellite-based IP infrastructure.