Content deleted Content added
Frappyjohn (talk | contribs) →top: Delete "purchases": nonsensical and not in cited source. |
|||
Line 4:
'''Metcalfe's law''' states that the value of a [[telecommunications network]] is [[Quadratic growth|proportional to the square]] of the number of connected users
of the system (''n''<sup>2</sup>). First formulated in this form by [[George Gilder]] in 1993,<ref>{{cite book | title = Information Rules | author = Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian | publisher = Harvard Business Press | year = 1999 | isbn = 978-0-87584-863-1 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aE_J4Iv_PVEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:shapiro+inauthor:varian#PPA184,M1 }}</ref> and attributed to [[Robert Metcalfe]] in regard to [[Ethernet]], Metcalfe's law was originally presented, c. 1980, not in terms of users, but rather of "compatible communicating devices" (e.g., fax machines, telephones).<ref>{{cite web | title = Metcalfe's Law: more misunderstood than wrong? | date = July 26, 2006 | author = Simeon Simeonov | work = HighContrast: Innovation & venture capital in the post-broadband era | url = http://simeons.wordpress.com/2006/07/26/metcalfes-law-more-misunderstood-than-wrong/ }}</ref> Only later with the [[history of the Internet|globalization of the Internet]] did this law carry over to users and networks as its original intent was to describe Ethernet
==Network effects==
Metcalfe's law characterizes many of the [[network effect]]s of communication technologies and networks such as the [[Internet]], [[social networking]] and the [[World Wide Web]]. Former Chairman of the U.S. [[Federal Communications Commission]] [[Reed Hundt]] said that this law gives the most understanding to the workings of the Internet.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/networks/metcalfes-law-is-wrong |title= Metcalfe's Law is wrong | author = Bob Briscoe, Andrew Odlyzko and Benjamin Tilly | date= July 2006 |access-date=2010-07-25}}</ref> Metcalfe's Law is related to the fact that the number of unique possible connections in a network of <math>n</math> nodes can be expressed mathematically as the [[triangular number]] <math>n(n-1)/2</math>, which is [[Big O notation|asymptotically]] proportional to <math>n^2</math>.
| |||