Ungodly packet loss rates

Wed Oct 23 22:44:56 UTC 1996

On Wed, 23 Oct 1996, Paul Ferguson wrote:

|} One Big Win (tm) with the creation of local interconnects (for
|} instance, strategic locations in Asia & South/Central America), is that
|} local content providers can find a way to swap bits without transiting
|} all the way back to the United States; in my opinion, we need more
|} exchanges to decrease the amount of traffic contributing to this
|} problem. 

Unfortunately the larger network providers, which provide access to the
bulk of the users haven't quite grasped this model, or are ignoring it. 
Some have jumped the fence and are working with content companies and/or
their providers' to both (a) spread the load out and (b) focus on keeping
content local within a region. 

The Internet is made up of users, the users are there in part, because
they believe they can get better, quicker, or easier access to "content," 
than they could using other methods (e.g. newspaper, TV, etc.) 

This illustrates the point that if there isn't any content, what is the
Internet but a big Email network? 

-jh-