Attempt to summarize Links on the Blink

Mon Nov 13 15:50:10 UTC 1995

I would like to try to understand better where this discussion seems to 
have come to rest.  Yesterday the suggestion was made that the major 
providers add more bandwidth to their backbones.  There seemed to be no 
assertion as to how this could be done.

1.  OC-3 is not yet routable on backbones.  Is that correct?

2.  What is the routing impact of parrallel T-3s?  Or the creation of a 
mesh of T-3s? I have the impression that this is not feasible because it 
would expand the routing tables unacceptably or because of the questions 
of how you would load balance among them??

3.  There seems to be some consensus that we will see an increase in the 
numbers of NAP or MAE like interchange points which could cut down on the 
traffic that must traverse long haul backbones.  *BUT* doesn't each 
additional interchange point used by all the top level providers mean 
another new set of global routes crowding router memories?

4.  How much help will regional NAPs like Tucson be?  Their goal is to 
keep local traffic local and off long haul backbones.  What liklihood is 
there that these will grow in numbers quickly enough to make a 
difference?  If the majors start showing up at these points does their 
arrival mean that the problem of crowding memory in their backbone 
routers will be increased?

5.  How much new network usage is already "in the pipe"?  AT&T's 
outsourcing via BBN - also @home turning CATV into serious net users for 
example?  Does anyone have any idea of growth strains that must be met in 
the next 6 to 9 months to avoid serious problems like the brick wall that 
has been mentioned?

Certainly bandwidth problems have been cyclical and have been solved 
before.  But someone (Paul Vixie?) suggested that we have a whole series 
of interlinked problems where pushing on one part of the envelope causes 
difficulties in another part of the envelope.

This sounds pretty serious.  Is it?  

What are the fixes?  If technology what are they and how far away?  Is 
the Ncube router what is needed?  Wht stands in the way of routing OC-3?  
Routers?  Or ATM?  (Someone said that packets should be sent over raw 
sonet.  What stands in the way of doing that?

I'd be very interested in further discussion of this in public or private.

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