I was recently informed of several service companies which perform tasks that directly relate to several of our class discussions and topics.  There are numerous companies which make a profit by running switchboards between various wireless and land line phone companies.   Without getting technical (because it would not be that much fun to read and I wouldn’t be able to clearly explain the technicalities anyway) these companies serve to make sure that someone using a phone with Sprint service can reach their best friends who uses Verizon as their wireless carrier.  They quite literally create edges between networks, more specifically between specific nodes within a network.  However, the edges they create are more akin to the bridges we studied in class due to their nature, specifically their ability to link two large networks together.

            The link provided here http://www.verisign.com is a link to VeriSign’s website. Verisign is a telecommunications company which operates an array of network infrastructures.  In addition they also perform the service described above as well as number portability which I elaborate on in the following paragraph. 

            As stated earlier, Verisign and other similar companies offer a service known as Local Number Portability.  This “portability” refers to the ability to retain ones telephone number, wireless or otherwise, when a customer decides to either move (physically geographic location) or switch phone companies.  This service prevented the changing of operators with a person moving from on geographic location to another.   This topic relates to what we have been discussing in class because number portability, is in actuality the moving of a node (a person) from one network (say Sprint) to another (say Verizon).