links on the blink (fwd)

Michael Dillon michael at memra.com
Sun Nov 5 04:53:46 UTC 1995


On Sat, 4 Nov 1995, Rob Skrobola wrote:

>   >From: Michael Dillon <michael at memra.com>
> 
>   >Uh... Ignore it?
>   >10% packet loss is quite within the normal range of parameters for a 
>   >packet switching network such as the Internet. 
> 
> I must disagree here. 10% packet loss within national backbones is a
> problem to be fixed as soon as possible.

Continuous 10% packet loss does need to be fixed. But the nature of 
Internet traffic is such that it can *NOT* be eliminated. There will 
always be bursts of packet loss like this no matter what the architecture.
This may change if and when the nature of Internet traffic changes but 
for now that is a given.

> It is not something to be
> tolerated. An examination of some of the interconnect points will find
> providers talking across media that is far past saturation, and is
> at capacity.
> 
> The good news is that from my point of view, these things are being
> addressed. Not as quickly as everyone would like (including me), but
> it's happening.

In fact, it was on the NANOG list here that Sean and somebody else 
recently discussed Sprint's and MCI's plans to add many two-way 
interchange points between their networks to take some load off the NAPS 
because the NAP architecture just wasn't working out in practice.

In other words, the problem is known, has been publicly acknowledged, a 
solution has been discussed and NSP's have publicly announced that they 
are deploying that solution. Seems fine to me.

>   >> my regional service provider. There is no quality control at the
>   >> inter-ISP level. I want to see that fixed. 
>   >
>   >But nothing is broken. There is no inter-ISP level. ISP's buy access to 

> Assuming Hans-Werner meant inter-NSP, I must differ with both of
> you.. There *is* quality control at the inter-NSP level.

Correct terminology means everything doesn't it? ;-)

> things broken, as I said. There are also a bunch of folks working night
> and day to make sure it works as well as it does, and a bunch more
> trying to make it get better.

And some of us do appreciate your hard work and do understand that you 
don't have any magic wands to wave.


Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc.                                 Fax: +1-604-542-4130
http://www.memra.com                             E-mail: michael at memra.com




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