The CIX and the NSFNET regionals - a dilemma

Wed Feb 5 04:47:26 UTC 1992

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> From: Martin Lee Schoffstall <schoff at psi.com>
> Subject: Re: The CIX and the NSFNET regionals - a dilemma 
> Date: Tue, 04 Feb 92 22:47:42 -0500
>
> 
> I've deferred responding publicly to the com-priv message since I hoped
> others would.  But I will respond to this....
>
> there isn't a routing "problem".   there are gigapackets/month running
> through the CIX reliably, with little latency, and very inexpensively.
>
> What vaf wants is some tuning for the high bandwidth path that he and
> a very few others have by the grace of nsf and tax $'s.  it is a
> reasonable request given that people don't want to ante up quite yet
> for t3 cix interconnects.  This tuning to my knowledge is driven
> by a fairly small % of the total CIX networks (10 out of 500?).

 I am providing the following data based on NEARnet's current membership in
order to put the situation in perspective.  I would expect that the ratios
would vary significantly from one network service provider to another.

 Of NEARnet's 115 members, we would require such "tuning" (as mentioned above)
for at least 20 organizations.  This represents 60-70 network routes out of 
about 250. This considers only bandwidth; certainly reliability and latency 
might also force transit network selection. 

 The routing issue is very real for any network which serves the academic and 
research community.  Providing for their needs, while preventing the Internet 
from segmenting, is the significant challenge before us.

/John