From: Michael Dillon <michael@priori.net> To: nanog@merit.edu; Gene Shklar <GeneShklar@keynote.com> Subject: RE: Keynote/Boardwatch Internet Backbone Index A better test!!! Date: Friday, June 27, 1997 2:39 PM

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Thanks for the suggestions. We're considering doing a follow-up and perhaps making this a regular feature every 2 or 4 months thereafter. We've received a few suggestions for methodology changes/enhancements,

I just thought of another solution to the problem of too many variables. The numbers that you came up with this time are essentially meaningless because there are so many variables involved that shift from time to time, and by taking one month of measurements and boiling it down to a single number, you simply don't learn anything useful. However, if you were to do a similar test and come up with a single number for each day and then

See the July Directory. We show about 30 pages of graphs, including one with an average for each period (nominally 4 hours I think) across the calendar month. ---------- plot

that number for one month, then it would show some useful info. If a provider has one bad day, it doesn't blow their average but it is still clearly visible. And if a provider has 10 bad days, then that is also visible and is arguably more useful than a single number which might be seen as implying a slower network. Personally, I would rate an erratic network as far worse than a slower one.

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