The Great Exchange

Wed May 27 18:24:33 UTC 1998

>>>>> The moving finger of Perry E Metzger, having written:

    Perry> "Pickett, David" writes:
    >> 1) More needs to be done to leverage locality of traffic

    Perry> In the long run, why are we assuming there will be locality of
    Perry> traffic?

    Perry> It is true that the old PSTN has locality of traffic, but it doesn't
    Perry> have flat rate pricing, or the usage patterns that the Internet has. I 
    Perry> argue that users are rarely more likely to be trying to download a web 
    Perry> page from near to their homes than from far away. If there is
    Perry> locality, it is probably weak, and in the long run would only account
    Perry> for a fraction of the traffic.

    Perry> Perry

As to how much of the traffic is local, about half of the people I
know at least check email from home.  Some are "weekend and evening
telecommuters", making quite extensive use of "local connectivity".

How this compares to the generic web surfing, I can't say.  The CAIDA
and NLANR folks say that http traffic is the most significant portion
of today's Internet.

Perhaps someone who is actually running a local exchange can report on
how much traffic they are carrying that is now not being sent to a
MAE-equivalent?  I think that actual experience and hard data will
surprise us all.

--tep