As a practical matter, this innovation would allow the Internet to run on any infrastructure, and carry any application, its packets traveling any type of wire or radio broadcast band, even those owned by an entity as given to strict controls as AT&T. It was truly a first in human history: an electronic information network independent of the physical infrastructure over which it ran. The invention of encapsulation also permitted the famous “layered” structure of the Internet, whereby communications functions are segregated, allowing the network to negotiate the differing technical standards of
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