Internet II is coming...

Wed Oct 9 21:53:54 UTC 1996

>From:  Sean Doran[SMTP:smd at cesium.clock.org]
>Sent:  Wednesday, October 09, 1996 2:28 PM
>
>Finally, I assert that we are already at the point where anything
>that can be deployed today that is based on ATM (which incidentally
>typically rides over SONET/SDH) can be kludged up (or even done right)
>with Cisco gear and SONET/SDH.  ATM has a temporary edge in being
>multivendor and making it easy to do TDM-style and point-to-multipoint
>things, however the former is likely to be short-term and the latter
>is something that can be done better for Internet traffic anyway,
>with a bit of cleverness in the latest and in the next generation
>of IP routers.

"IP Unter Alles", in other words, right?

Okay, I'll take the bait.  This past weekend, we demonstrated (1) 
video-conferencing, (2) streaming video, (3) 155 Mbps to the desktop 
Internet connectivity, and (4) connectivity to the Public Switched 
Telephone Network, all over our ATM OC3c backbone, simultaneously and 
continuously.  #1 & #2 can be either IP or native ATM, and in this case we 
ran it over IP.  #3 requires ATM, although you can get close to it using 
other technologies.

But what about #4?  Connection to the PSTN?

Please explain to me how to, in a non-kludgey manner, provide the PSTN 
connectivity using only Cisco routers.  I certainly believe that most 
customers would consider speaking into a microphone attached to their PC 
and listening to the PCs speaker just a tad on the kludgey side.  Not to 
mention that they would need an extra sound card to avoid having to say 
"over" every time they were through speaking.  No, I think they want to use 
the nifty 900Mhz Sony cordless phone they just bought at Circuit City, and 
have a level of service (note I avoided the dreaded 'Q' word) similar to 
what they get from their POTS line.

Oh, and by the way, given that the local loop provider has OC-48 SONET 
provisioned to this particular location, we could just as easily have 
provisioned the connection to our backbone at OC12 as opposed to OC3.  Did 
I miss the Cisco announcement of an OC12 IP-SONET card?

>Since these routers will be needed with or without ATM, the time
>to ponder whether ATM really has that much added value in the
>long run is upon people already.

As is the time to ponder how all the various technologies can work well 
together.  What is long past is the time to flame a technology which has 
already become an integral part of the Internet infrastructure, and which 
will remain so for a long time to come.  There are plusses and minuses to 
the widespread deployment of ATM, just as with *any* technology, however it 
does have some undeniable advantages, and one of them is its ability to 
carry voice traffic independent of IP traffic, and to connect in a 
reasonably straightforward manner to the PSTN.  Would you prefer to have 
voice traffic clogging up the IP backbone??

--
Jim Browning

"My views do in fact reflect the views of my sponsor, and I am now going to 
go look for that asbestos suit said sponsor provides to those of us who are 
inclined to support the merits of ATM on Nanog"