Another UUNET Explanation

Wed Jul 2 07:23:29 UTC 1997

On Tue, 1 Jul 1997, Alex Rubenstein wrote:

> This is not exactly true. Frame Relay -- if designed properly, and with
> good frame switches -- can be - IMHO - 10's of times better. 

How? Does good frame relay switches accelerate photons or something?

> Frame Relay allows yout he ability to psuedo-directly connection various
> pop's together, and gives that clean appearance of a 'no-hop' back bone. 
> Why route when you can switch? 

Yes, both frame relay and ATM give the "appearance" of a 'no-hop' backbone.
Just because traceroute doesn't show the switch hop in the middle doesn't mean
that they aren't there.

So what is inherently better about that, unless you are into marketing
vapours? 

I can see the argument that with current generation of rather deficient
routers, switches have smaller per-hop latency, but even this is pretty silly
since that difference is a noise lost in the cross continental/cross oceanic
propagation delay.

This should be a moot point any way with the impending introduction of real
routers in to the networks.

-dorian