Back in 2006, Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens famously described the Internet as a "series of tubes". <src> While he was mocked relentlessly for his analogy, it's actually quite a good one. What he didn't know, is all the cool kids use the term pipe, such as: "Damn, that 10 gig metro Ethernet is a huge pipe!" Had Ted Stevens said the Internet was a series of pipes, history might have been kinder to him. Okay, probably not.
When taken in its full context, his quote actually makes some sense.
"And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on, it's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled, and if they're filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material." <src>
Whether you are talking about pipes, tubes, or wireless wavelengths, all network mediums have a maximum capacity, which might be limited by technology or even physics for that matter.
If you've worked in the field of Internet communications for any length of time, you learned fairly quickly that any pipe that constitutes an Internet connection (the tube), can fill up pretty darn quickly if it's not managed correctly. When he mentions your message 'getting in line' and 'being delayed', he's describing two important concepts in communications networks called queuing and latency. With that in mind, you'll come to realize, that ol Ted didn't miss the mark by that much, he was just guilty of being too old to talk about the Internet.
Rest in peace Senator Stevens! I'll do my best to keep those tubes a flowing, on my little corner of the Internet.
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