NANOG

Thu Apr 4 03:05:59 UTC 1996

On Wed, 3 Apr 1996, Jeff Ogden wrote:

> >From my point of view (from my customers' point of view) the Internet in
> the US is failing right now. It hasn't collapsed, but some parts are almost
> unusable due to congestion. 

IMHO a good portion of this is due to overstressed WWW servers and/or 
undersized links to very popular WWW server sites. This is not a network 
problem, per se, it is a problem caused by and solvable by the people who 
operate very popular WWW server sites. One site that is getting worse and 
worse is http://www.zdnet.com which carries things like MacWeek and PCWeek.

> I think lots of people are working hard to
> improve that situation and I do think it will get better over time (and
> then it will get worse again and better and ..., just as it has in the
> past).  I do think communication about who is doing what, could be better.

Classic problems caused by stupendously amazing growth rates....

P.S. have a look at http://www.interop.com/metcalfe.html if you want to 
read an interesting retrospective by Bob Metcalfe.

Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc.                                 Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com                             E-mail: michael at memra.com