What Does Interconnect Mean?
An interconnect (generally speaking) is a physical or logical connection between two electronic devices or networks. Expressed as a verb, to interconnect is to establish a connection between two separate electronic networks. In the United States, the term “interconnection” is identified as “the linking of two or more networks for the mutual exchange of traffic” by Title 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Techopedia Explains Interconnect
After the Communications Act of 1934 (which is known for, among other things, replacing the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission), the Bell System established a monopoly over telephone networks. The monopoly remained for several years, but was interrupted by numerous landmark court cases involving third-party devices that served as connections or extensions to telephones.
These issues culminated in the Federal Communications Commission mandating standard jacks and connectors for consumer telephones and communications networks. That in turn led to the establishment of the registered jack (RJ), which standardized interconnection between wired telephone networks. The RJ standard has persisted for decades, and has become an international de-facto standard.
The modern hardware device for interconnection is the network switch, in which multiple ports converge in order to establish connections between computers and networks through packet-switching. This was developed from the Open Systems Interconnection protocols (computer networking standards that were developed in the late 1970s).
