----- Original Message -----

From: "Valdis Kletnieks" <Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu>

So what you're saying is that after a Kyoto/Chile sized quake, or a Katrina, or a Quebec 1990 ice storm, you can *guarantee* that you can still fill all requests for transponder space, and *still* satisfy every single customer who wants to book 4 hours on Thursday on short notice.

Like I said - 98% is easy. 100% is hard.

Sure. But 100% is also your strawman, I believe; no? Particularly in the specific space we're presently talking about: iDirect Satellite IP service over transponders dedicated to the hub operator, the service is a bit more elastic than I believe you imagine. *Most* iDirect customers are sharing a carrier; it's a TDMA service. It's only the fairly rare ones, like I may be, who actually want a "1:1" or uncontended carrier all to ourselves. Depending on your spectrum management practices as a hub operator, if you have an entire 36MHz Ku band transponder -- or better, 2 on the same bird -- with which to play, you may be able to carve out 3MHz worth of free space, without *anyone* getting knocked off line. The 1000 other clients who are contending for that 72MHz of space merely have to contend a very small amount harder. So in actual fact, it may be possible to both meet your SLA's to the contention customers and *still* give an occasional customer 100% uncontended bandwidth for a short period of time; it's one of the reasons I propose to go that way: it *increases* my odds of getting a clean slot from at least one of 3 hub providers at any given hour. Cheers, -- jra