How relable does the Internet need to be? (Was: Re: Converged Network Threat)

Thu Feb 26 00:46:07 UTC 2004

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Steve Gibbard [mailto:scg at gibbard.org]
>Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2004 12:30 AM
>To: nanog at merit.edu
>Subject: How relable does the Internet need to be? (Was: Re: Converged Network Threat)

<snipped>

>>So, it appears that among general infrastructure we depend on, there are
>probably the following reliability thresholds:
>
>Employees not being able to get to work due to snow: two to three days per
>year.
>Berkeley storm sewers: overflow two to three days per year.
>Residential Electricity: out two to three hours per year.
>Cell phone service: Somewhat better than nine fives of reliability ;)
>Landline phone service:  I haven't noticed an outage on my home lines in a
>few years.
>Natural gas: I've never noticed an outage.
>
>How Internet service fits into that of course depends on how you're
>accessing the Net.  The T-Mobile GPRS card I got recently seems
>significantly less reliable than my cell phone.  My SBC DSL line is almost
>to the reliability level of my landline phone or natural gas service,
>except that the DSL router in my basement doesn't work when electric power
>is out.  I'm probably poorly qualified to talk about the end-user
>experience on the networks I actually work on, even if I had permission
>to.  Like pretty much everybody else here, I'm always interested in doing
>better on reliability.  And, like many of my neighbors, I'd like to be
>able to store stuff on my basement floor.  In comparison to a lot of other
>infrastructure we depend on, it seems to me the Internet is already doing
>pretty well.
>
>-Steve
>
>

With BPL on the horizon and the Electric Utils looking to de-regulate in some areas, it will be interesting to watch infrastructure adapt accordingly.
I think the Internet is doing pretty well save some IOS code problems from time to time, and the typical root server hicups.

Dee