Private networks give big banks or large corporations a competitive edge. It can also be a profit centre, since third parties are willing to pay to get their fund transfers onto such a private network, with its defined service levels. But that's all set to change. What the Internet did bring was standardisation of protocols, such as IP that anyone could use whether or not they used the Internet as a transport mechanism. This means that anyone can have a cost-effective private network without the high startup costs.
Private networks are expensive to set up because of the cost of the infrastructure.
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