PAIX

Mon Nov 18 12:55:19 UTC 2002

Thus spake "Jere Retzer" <retzerj at ohsu.edu>
> - Coast-to-coast "guaranteed latency" seems too low in most cases that I've
> seen. Not calling CEOs and marketers liars but the real world doesn't seem
> to do as well as the promises.

Someone in the engineering group of a promising local ISP once told me their
billing and capacity planning model was designed for them to fail every customer
SLA and still turn a profit.  Interpret that how you wish.

> As VOIP takes off "local" IP exchanges will continue/increase in importance
> because people won't tolerate high latency.

Any point in the US is within 25ms RTT (or less) of a major exchange;
eliminating this 25ms of latency will have no effect on VoIP unless you're
already near the 250ms RTT limit for other reasons.

> What percentage of your phone calls are local?

Who cares?  I'm billed by the airtime I consume, not by the distance my call
goes.  Hawaii and the local pizza place cost me the same amount.

> - Yes, we do various kinds of video over Internet2. Guess what? Packet loss
> is very important. Fewer hops mean fewer lost packets.

You've been listening to the MPLS/ATM crowd too long.  Congestion, not hops,
causes packet loss.

> - Unfortunately, these applications do not work with today's local broadband
> networks ― one reason being the lack of local interconnection. People have
> quit believing the Radio Shack ads. We have the technology to make these
> applications work if we'd stop arguing that no one wants to use them. Of
> course no one wants to use them ― they know they won't work!

These apps are broken because the interested parties aren't interested.  Ask any
doctor if he wants to give up physically seeing his patients -- there are laws
in most states outlawing doctors talking to patients unless they are physically
present, not to mention most doctors refuse to even digitize their records or
use Palm Pilots to look up forgotten symptoms or treatments.  Blaming broadband
for the failure of your "killer apps" is not going to help.

S