ip-precedence for management traffic

Alexander Harrowell a.harrowell at gmail.com
Wed Dec 30 14:05:02 UTC 2009


On Tuesday 29 December 2009 22:22:05 Randy Bush wrote:
> > None of us knows precisely what we're going to absolutely require, or
> > merely want/prefer, tomorrow or the next day, much less a year or two
> > from now. Unless, of course, we choose to optimize (constrain)
> > functionality so tightly around what we want/need today that the
> > prospect of getting anything different is effectively eliminated.
>
> this is the telco solution to the nasty disruptive technologies spawned
> by the internet
>
> randy

It surely is. Also, when was the last time you had a customer ring up and ask 
for a product "like the Internet but with bits missing"? Nobody wants it, and 
the evidence of this is that nobody asks for it, and further that nobody's 
started an ISP that provides it, although people have been talking about it 
for years.

The support for "the Internet but not quite" is usually from either:
1) Telcos who secretly wish the Internet would go away
2) Security/morals bureaucrats (who secretly wish it would go away)
3) Engineers noodling on the idea, who don't have a business model for it

Note that this list doesn't include "users" or "customers" or anyone willing 
to offer "money" for it.

Also, I don't think it's at all clear that Internet-minus service would be 
cheaper to provide. Basically, if you have an IP network you can provide all 
the applications over it by default. Therefore, if you want to get rid of 
some, you've got to make an effort, which implies cost. There is no such thing 
as a Web DSL modem or a Web router.

In terms of traffic, as over 50% of the total is WWW these days, and a sizable 
chunk of the rest is Web-video streaming, once you've chucked in the e-mail, 
it's far from clear that you'd save significant amounts of bandwidth. 
Obviously, if you were intending to offer proper Internet service as an extra-
cost option, you wouldn't have two lots of access lines, backhaul, transit - 
you'd filter more ports for some subset of your addressing scheme, or put the 
less-than-Internet customers on a different layer 2 vlan. So you'd still need 
the extra bandwidth for the other customers.

Where is the saving? Fewer support calls due to...what exactly? aren't the 
biggest malware vectors now web-based drive by download, sql injection and the 
like? Of course, there'll be a fair few wanting to know why slingbox, skype, 
IM protocol of choice, work vpns etc don't work.

The exercise is pointless.
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