Ungodly packet loss rates

Mon Oct 21 23:49:32 UTC 1996

On Mon, 21 Oct 1996, Jon Zeeff wrote:

> In other words, the big players don't like the "open" naps and 
> are deliberately not installing sufficient bandwidth to them?

No, the open NAP's are bad engineering and the big players are fixing the
topology by routing around them.

Visualize a typical garden spiderweb. All the main strands lead to the
core of the web but there are many short transverse strands that provide
alternate routes for the spider to travel. Now visualize the Eiffel tower.
There are major support beams interlaced with many shorter braces. Now
visualize a typical statewide highway grid. There are major highways
converging on a city but there are always bypass roads around the city
unless the city is a very small one.

The Internet absolutely needs exchange points. And all but the smallest
exchange points absolutely need bypasses. I think that right now we are in
a phase where the need for bypasses (private exchanges between two
parties) is quite clear but the deployment is lagging a bit because of
this tremendous wave of growth that everybody is trying to keep up with.

If you've read about the distribution of market towns in Ancient
Mesopotamia then another thing that we can expect to see is a regular
pattern of small exchanges everywhere with the occasional larger regional
exchange and a handful of major national exchange points. I'm not sure yet
whether the local ISP qualifies as the "small exchanges everywhere" or
whether this role will be filled by metropolitan exchanges in every city.
Time will tell I suppose.

Michael Dillon                   -               ISP & Internet Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com