Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 11:02:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Bulent Yener <yener@research.bell-labs.com> Subject: IP-Internets [...] 2- how commonly is IP over ATM used?
From the ATM Forum Board of Directors Report - Rome, Italy, April 23,1999: ... Fred [Baker, chair of the IETF] stated that 75% of all Internet traffic today touches an ATM device and acknowledged the importance of the role of ATM in providing traffic engineering in today's networks. ... I don't really know where this number comes from nor whether it is really true. A number of facilities-based carriers are either migrating or talking about migrating from ATM to some sort of IP-over-fiber solution. I believe that the economics of ATM versus IP-over-fiber solutions are tremendously different for those who own fiber compared to those who don't own the fiber.
Do network operators really care about the cell-tax? [...]
Define "care". Certainly, one sees a lot of whining about the ATM "cell tax". On the other hand, if Fred Baker is correct, ATM is heavily used in the Internet. Having said that, I believe that any ISP that selects a service on the basis of some sort of overhead measurement, rather than an evaluation of cost versus performance, is confused. -tjs