On Aug 28, 17:25, Roger Bohn <Rbohn@ucsd.edu> wrote:

P.S. Remember the flap 6 months ago when EUNet basically tried to ban CuSeeMe for exactly this reason.

Small factual correction: this was in fact well over a year ago (time flies, huhh?:-), and an outright ban wasn't on the table; rather, that users wanting to use realtime A/V applications should ask first. That aside, ill-behaved traffic will forever be a problem in whatever network with whatever technology, etc, etc, no matter what is the cause of the poor behaviour. The key issue is that things break if a balanced interplay between networking technologies, devices, and applications isn't maintained; consider eg the ethernet capture effect as an example of a new slant on the problem. There is a tendency to equate "TCP" with "well-behaved", which really only is the case if the TCP implementation itself is good, and the stream of some duration. In former times that was practically always the case, but today's HTTP traffic, consisting of multiple short-lived streams, is for most intents and purposes ill-behaved, though nowhere near as dramatically as earlier versions of CU-SeeMe (we're talking about a difference of 1-2 orders of magnitude). -- ------ ___ --- Per G. Bilse, Mgr Network Operations ----- / / / __ ___ _/_ ---- EUnet Communications Services B.V. ---- /--- / / / / /__/ / ----- Singel 540, 1017 AZ Amsterdam, NL --- /___ /__/ / / /__ / ------ tel: +31 20 5305333, fax: +31 20 6224657 --- ------- 24hr emergency number: +31 20 421 0865 --- Connecting Europe since AS286 --- http://www.EU.net e-mail: bilse@EU.net

this seems to reverberate with comments made just a few days ago... About how, when services are delivered at a flat rate, the provider's most fiscally responsible SOP is to run their network to as close of a breaking point as possible. When services hit 100% resource usage, there is no economic loss (aside from subscribers cancelling, which I won't deal with here). If, on the other hand, services are delivered at a metered rate, and there is demand that is greater than the resources available, then the difference between that demand and the available resources is potential revenue which is lost. Unmetered usage develops an environment which puts some sort of backpressure on the end user, to discourage or prevent the usage of too much resource. Metered usage develops an environment which *encourages* resource use. You want to make more money, right? If you've ever read Compuserve's subscriber magazine, they highlight many files they *want* you to download. Why? Because they charged a metered rate, and they made money on every download. Think about it. The journalist may be stupid, but the point has some merit. Ed -- On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Jeremy Porter wrote:

"... Without usaged-based charges service providers are called on to upgrade their infrastructure with no clear promise of a return on investment."

I take offense at your tone. Subscribers cancelling due to a lack of resources is a drop in the bucket compared to other reasons, and even despite cancellations, all ISP's are growing. The point remains: flat rate systems will operate to discourage resource use, metered rate systems will encourage resource use. When was the last time AT&T suggested you *not* make that LD call? Ed -- On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Michael Dillon wrote:

On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Edward Henigin wrote:

...

When services hit 100% resource usage, there is no economic loss (aside from subscribers cancelling, which I won't deal with here).

This is pretty dumb! If you are going to talk about the economic systems aspect of tier 1 providers then you have to include subscriber cancellations and company reputation. Not to do so is roughly equivalent to discussing why people should use Cisco 75xx boxes and saying something like:

"aside from the 75xx's BGP features which I won't deal with here"

...

the resources available, then the difference between that demand and the available resources is potential revenue which is lost.

In an economic system, lost revenue is lost revenue whether it comes from subscriber cancellations or elsewhere.

Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com

Edward, Certainly it is possible to build a network in increments, and maintain both profitability and customer satisfaction. Companies that don't maintain both do not last very long. Building a network, filling it and oversubscribing to saturation is silly. The interesting thing here is to discuss what is profitability, and what is the expected level of customer satisfaction? {and what is long?} Rarely do folks make direct profit on everything they do. Investments are needed, and with the maturation of those investments, comes the payoff. If the payoff is greater, there is the profit. When folks are looking for payoff is very, very interesting. {hint hint} Customer satisfaction is another dynamic vessel, which often is far, far lower than what we expect it to be..... I don't build networks for that [low of a] level of satisfaction, but reality has shown me that the bulk of customers have expectations far lower than I would have, as a customer. Certainly there are customers that want 99.9999% uptime and greater than 3 points of failure, but they are rare. {interesting thing here is that that expectation will rise, when the media stops saying how broken the internet is, and starts saying how wonderful it is and how reliable it is} Or maybe I'm off base... -alan ......... Edward Henigin is rumored to have said: ] ] ] this seems to reverberate with comments made just a few days ] ago... About how, when services are delivered at a flat rate, the ] provider's most fiscally responsible SOP is to run their network to as ] close of a breaking point as possible. When services hit 100% resource ] usage, there is no economic loss (aside from subscribers cancelling, ] which I won't deal with here). If, on the other hand, services are ] delivered at a metered rate, and there is demand that is greater than ] the resources available, then the difference between that demand and ] the available resources is potential revenue which is lost. ] ] Unmetered usage develops an environment which puts some sort ] of backpressure on the end user, to discourage or prevent the usage ] of too much resource. ] ] Metered usage develops an environment which *encourages* ] resource use. You want to make more money, right? If you've ever ] read Compuserve's subscriber magazine, they highlight many files they ] *want* you to download. Why? Because they charged a metered rate, ] and they made money on every download. ] ] Think about it. ] ] ] The journalist may be stupid, but the point has some merit. ] ] ] Ed ] ] -- ] On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Jeremy Porter wrote: ] ] > "... Without usaged-based charges service ] > providers are called on to upgrade their infrastructure with no clear promise of a return on investment." ] ]

On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Dick St.Peters wrote:

What research into the growth of telephone, telegraph, and train systems immediately reveals is usage-based pricing generating revenue to pay for the infrastructure to handle the growing traffic.

It also reveals that pay-per-message (telegraph) is not as successful a model as pay-per-month (telephone). The same things could be said about trains (pay-per-trip) and cars (basically flat-rate). Of course neither cars nor telephone are purely flat-rate models but then, neither is any ISP that I am aware of.

The people with a clue are those who can tell the difference between predicting the death of the net and predicting the end of the free lunch.

The economic models of telephone systems are very complex and it is difficult to figure out what true costs are to provide service. No doubt this is because generations of telco employees have been working on obfuscating the whole thing in order to justify the widespread use of metered rates. But one thing is certain. It costs more money to meter and to bill based upon metering than it does to bill flat rates. Perhaps this is why the CEO of Canada's largest telco conglomerate chose the following quote from an economist article to open a recent talk The significance of the issues in play was summed up as follows in a major feature on telecommunications in the Economist last September [1995]: “ The death of distance as a determinant of the cost of communications will probably be the single most important economic force shaping society in the first half of the next century. It will alter the decisions about where people live and work; concepts of national borders; patterns of international trade. Its effects will be as pervasive as those of the discovery of electricity.” IMHO the phrase "death of distance" is another way of saying that the current metered billing infrastructure collapses. And if this happens how can we be sure that metering itself will survive? Already the costs of billing are becoming close to 50% of a telco's expenses due to the plummeting costs of switching gear and other hard goods used in telecommunications. The best the future could hope for is that metering survives alongside flat rates but only for higher quality services. This could mean that metering is only found outside the public global Internet. You can read the talk by Red Wilson of Bell Canada Enterprises and some comments by an industry consultant at http://www.angustel.ca/future/fut.html Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com