Even the non-neutral cable system increasingly makes use of the packet-switched architecture and Internet protocols.

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Circuit-switched telephone systems have been replaced by packet-switched networks (most notably the Internet).

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But what starts out as government or military technology often ends up in commercial applications, as packet-switched networks and the global-positioning system demonstrate.

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For one thing, the genius of the packet-switched network means new VoIP services can reach every user worldwide without any specific infrastructure investment.

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Why did the phone companies cling to expensive switched network standards even as packet-switched voice grew robust enough to deliver acceptable fidelity at a much lower cost per connection?

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Pearse and others dream of unifying the mess, with a box that blends both optics and electronics, fusing the circuit-switched world of phone calls and packet-switched world of Internet data.

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But given what Qwest and Level 3 are spending to build smaller packet-switched businesses, he might easily be forced to accelerate spending at the same time that his margins erode.

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It is a packet-switched technology, and only consumes network resources when data is being transmitted, so it is widely expected that customers will be charged for the amount of data they exchange, rather than the time they spend logged on to the network.

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In time, packet networks will almost entirely replace more expensive and less capable circuit-switched networks.

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