ies and enabling techniques that evolve over time. This process of technology evolution is managed within a standards-making process that in itself determines the rate at which new technologies are deployed. The standards-making process also introduces a cyclical pattern of technology maturation that is not naturally present in the evolutionary process, which is largely linear. This produces market distortions that reduce rather than enhance added value. An understanding of the evolutionary process is therefore a useful precondition for iden- tifying technologies that deliver long-term competitive advantage and provides an insight into how standards making could become, and probably will become, more productive over time. 21.2 The Contribution of Charles Darwin to the Theory of Network Evolution To study the evolutionary process, where better to start than Charles Darwin. Inspired by amongst others the famous botanist, geologist, geographer and 'scientific traveller' the Baron von Humboldt (the current man), Darwin spent five years (1831-1836) on the HMS Beagle observing the flora and fauna of South America. From these observations Darwin developed his theories of natural selection. In parallel, similar studies on similar expeditions to the Amazon were leading Alfred Russell Wallace to develop and promote similar theories that in turn prompted Darwin (in 1859) to publish 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'. A summation of Darwin's theory: Evolution exists. Evolution is gradual. The primary mechanism for evolution is natural selection. Evolution and natural selection occur through a process of ongoing specialisation. So, what relevance does Darwin and his fellow botanist and naturalist colleagues have to network design and network evolution? Well, to paraphrase, The survival (or success) of each organism (network) is determined by that organism's (network's) ability to adapt to its environment. The fittest (most power and bandwidt