Do ATM-based Exchange Points make sense anymore?

Sat Aug 10 14:24:54 UTC 2002

Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike at swm.pp.se> writes:

> On 10 Aug 2002, Paul Vixie wrote:
> 
> > why on god's earth would subsecond anything matter in a
> > nonmilitary situation?
> 
> It does when you start doing streaming anything, say TV or telephony. I

I submit that it doesn't matter for voice or video, if the MTBF is
reasonably high.  Consider the reliability that people put up with
from their cable companies, and the voice quality that we accept from
our (North American) cell phones, not to mention the dropped calls.
Streaming video and VOIP is an order of magnitude better in my
experience without doing anything special.

I hate to come across (particularly in this forum) as an advocate of
purely market-driven engineering, you have to ask yourself what you're
buying if you're spending money to fix a problem that your customers
don't (and won't) perceive as such.

Remember the words of Admiral Gorshkov, who is variously quoted as
having said: "(Better,Perfect) is the enemy of good enough."

                                        ---Rob