Metcalfe strikes again!
---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 09:49:10 +0100 From: Joe Bonin <webmaster@scescape.net> Reply-To: inet-access@earth.com To: inet-access@earth.com Subject: Recent article in US News Resent-Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 08:45:12 -0500 (CDT) Resent-From: inet-access@earth.com Interesting 1 page article in US News & WR May 6 issue page 59. Here is a summary of the article. --begin summary Quotes Bob Metcalfe inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3Com Corp. "The Internet is about to collapse and it's going to shake some of the naivete' right out of the industry." The most likely time will be July with the Olympic Committee and IBM planning to put the Summer Olympic video and sound on the Internet according to him. The problems stem from private companies. ANS, MCI, Netcom, UUNET and Sprint and others taking over the backbone in the last year from NSF. These companies now claim ownership of portions of the backbone. But where NSF gave out Internet traffic data the new players do not. As a result no single company has a decent gauge of what's going on. Also, the shared parts of the backbone has no single company incentive to improve them (i.e. no incentive to back each other up.) Rob Hagens, MCI director of Internet engineering views Metcalf's scenario as being extreme with others inspite of 1 1/2 hour brownout on its West Coast backbone early in April. He says "I believe we're going to be able to keep the Internet running." They are all racing to invest in high speed networks to keep ahead of demand which is growing 100% per year. --end summary
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.)
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 :)
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
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
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
participants (5)
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Avi Freedman -
Christian Nielsen -
David J. Sharp -
Michael Dillon -
Paul A Vixie