Mailing List Archive

Danger! Danger Will Robinson! The network is no longer a monopoly!
There's no single point of control, or of failure! No single person knows
everything that's going on! Central capacity planning isn't possible!

Um, excuse me, but why is this a bad thing? (Rhetorical, don't answer.)
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On Mon, 6 May 1996, Paul A Vixie wrote:

> Danger! Danger Will Robinson! The network is no longer a monopoly!
> There's no single point of control, or of failure! No single person knows
> everything that's going on! Central capacity planning isn't possible!
>
> Um, excuse me, but why is this a bad thing? (Rhetorical, don't answer.)

We feel this is a 'Good' thing. For example, there are two companies
with DS3's in Utah. One goes up and down the other stays up all the time. Which
one do you think we go with? Also, there are many companies that think they can
be a 'high speed/T1/T3/OC48' provider and not know what they are doing. The
week will get weeded out. And the ones who know what they are doing will stay
around.


Christian Nielsen
Vyzynz International Inc. cnielsen@vii.com,CN46,KB7HAP
Phone 801-568-0999 Fax 801-568-0953
Private Email - Christian@Nielsen.Net BOFH - cnielsen@one.dot PS :)


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>On Mon, 6 May 1996, Paul A Vixie wrote:
>
>> Danger! Danger Will Robinson! The network is no longer a monopoly!
>> There's no single point of control, or of failure! No single person knows
>> everything that's going on! Central capacity planning isn't possible!
>>
>> Um, excuse me, but why is this a bad thing? (Rhetorical, don't answer.)
>
>We feel this is a 'Good' thing. For example, there are two companies
>with DS3's in Utah. One goes up and down the other stays up all the time. Which
>one do you think we go with? Also, there are many companies that think they can
>be a 'high speed/T1/T3/OC48' provider and not know what they are doing. The
>week will get weeded out. And the ones who know what they are doing will stay
>around.

Sorry for the fluff comment, but an observation: Even the weak will not
necessarily get weeded out if they're in the ISP/NSP business. Especially
if they start out in the ISP world and get enough of a revenue base.

> Christian Nielsen
> Vyzynz International Inc. cnielsen@vii.com,CN46,KB7HAP
> Phone 801-568-0999 Fax 801-568-0953
> Private Email - Christian@Nielsen.Net BOFH - cnielsen@one.dot PS :)

Avi

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On Mon, 6 May 1996, Christian Nielsen wrote:

> We feel this is a 'Good' thing. For example, there are two companies
> with DS3's in Utah. One goes up and down the other stays up all the time. Which
> one do you think we go with? Also, there are many companies that think they can
> be a 'high speed/T1/T3/OC48' provider and not know what they are doing. The
> week will get weeded out. And the ones who know what they are doing will stay
> around.

Your point seems logicaly valid, but the example you use only serves
to prove points other than what you intended. The 'up and down' you speak of
had nothing to do with anything inside of Utah or with Mom-n-Pop ISP. They
all occured within a major NSP. (name witheld to avoid finger pointing) The
problems also had nothing to do with technical incompetence on the part of
the NSP or ISP. Here is a list from recent memory:

1. Hssi card dies
2. Route processor dies.
3. weird BGP route propigation bug in cisco IOS
4. 7513 dies (exact reason unspecified)
5. Farmer in california plows up fiber.


-- this says three things to me --


i. s**t happens.

ii. Even a very large NSP with a competent staff, good equipment, and lots
of experience with >= T3 connections, CAN and DO have problems. Hence the
current thread on the need for standard email addresses.

iii. Mabey Bob Metcalfe is partaliy right, (not on the Chicken Little -- sky
is falling stuff,) but on the need to educate the masses who are swarming to
their nearest Internet POP. The Internet is still not the place for mission
critical (I hate that word) applications. If your business depends on 100%
availablity, then you are in the wrong business.

Could it be that the Internet is going through a growth process similar
to what the telephone industry went through. Although I am not old enough to
remember, I have heard there was a time when it was quite unreliable. Why
does the present US phone system work as well as it does? Was it federal
mandates on quality of service? Was it the MaBell monopoly?

I fear that senator Hatch from Utah is going to get up one morning and not
be able to surf, and conjure up a bill saying that the Internet shall lose no
more than one web page in 1 million end to end by 1998. ;)

- djs

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On Tue, 7 May 1996, David J. Sharp wrote:

> iii. Mabey Bob Metcalfe is partaliy right, (not on the Chicken Little -- sky
> is falling stuff,) but on the need to educate the masses who are swarming to
> their nearest Internet POP. The Internet is still not the place for mission
> critical (I hate that word) applications.

Neither is the North American highway system. Construction projects slow
and reroute traffic. Major cities have rush hour congestion. Earthquakes
damage bridges and highways. Flood waters rise over highways. Highways are
sometimes washed out by flash floods. Accidents block traffic. Accidents
destroy mission critical cargo when trucks crash. I could go on....
Why should an information highway be any different? It lives in the real
world too and as was said before: s**t happens.

> If your business depends on 100%
> availablity, then you are in the wrong business.

Let's be charitable and say, "you are using the wrong network". It is
probably possible to build a WAN with five 9's or greater stability if you
overbuild enough in an intelligent manner. But that's not what the public
Internet is. Doesn't the US miltary operate its own telephone system for
just that reason.

> Could it be that the Internet is going through a growth process similar
> to what the telephone industry went through. Although I am not old enough to
> remember, I have heard there was a time when it was quite unreliable. Why
> does the present US phone system work as well as it does? Was it federal
> mandates on quality of service? Was it the MaBell monopoly?

I always tell people that the Internet and computer technology of today is
like the Model T Ford; just getting "mass production" under control.


Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com

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