ATM Wide-Area Networks (was: sell shell accounts?)

Tue Jul 23 19:50:11 UTC 1996

> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 14:28:27 -0400
> From: Paul Ferguson <pferguso at cisco.com>
> Subject: Re: ATM Wide-Area Networks (was: sell shell accounts?)
> 	[...]
> It depends on what you mean when you say 'performance'. I think
> there is more and more interest being vested in ATM inefficiency,
> and alternate technologies to better efficiency in the long-haul.
> 
> Recall Jerry Scharf's numbers; they're indicative of the issue.
> 	[...]
> HDLC framing bytes =   3080633605		HDLC efficiency = 97.72
> ATM framing bytes =   3644304857		ATM efficiency = 82.61
> ATM w/snap framing bytes =   3862101043	ATM w/snap efficiency = 77.95

At a certain point, some of these arguments about ATM efficiency sound a bit
like saying FDDI is terrible because 4B/5B encoding is only 80% efficient.

I think a more interesting measure of the value of ATM versus other 
wide-area technologies is some sort of measure of throughput per dollar.

-tjs