off-topic: historical query concerning the Internet bubble

Wed Aug 11 17:24:30 UTC 2010

Wait a sec, you seems to assume that the 'Doubling every 100 days" statement 
was referring to the Internet traffic not just UUNet traffic.  My recollection 
was that the statement was referring to UUNet traffic based on the stats 
collected in a period of time (see my previous email). That is why I urged the 
author of the paper to make this important distinction.  If one made a 
prediction based on stats collected and the prediction was not accurate due to 
the imperfection of stats (in this case, it may be caused by a short term 
growth abnormally, as Jeff Young pointed out), it is unfair to assume the person 
misled public on purpose.

Thanks!

--Jessica

________________________________
From: Kenny Sallee <kenny.sallee at gmail.com>
To: Jessica Yu <jyy_99 at yahoo.com>; Andrew Odlyzko <odlyzko at umn.edu>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org
Sent: Mon, August 9, 2010 4:01:00 PM
Subject: Re: off-topic: historical query concerning the Internet bubble

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 2:52 PM, Jessica Yu <jyy_99 at yahoo.com> wrote: 
I do not know if making such distinction would alter the conclusion of your
>paper.  But, to me, there is a difference between one to predict the growth of
>one particular network based on the stats collected than one to predict the
>growth of the entire Internet with no solid data.
>Thanks!--Jessica
>
Agree with Jessica: you can't say the 'Internet' doubles every x number of 
days/amount of time no matter what the number of days or amount of time is.  The 
'Internet' is a series of tubes...hahaha couldn't help it....As we all know the 
Internet is a bunch of providers plugged into each other.  Provider A may see an 
10x increase in traffic every month while provider B may not.  For example, if 
Google makes a deal with Verizon only Verizon will see a huge increase in 
traffic internally and less externally (or vice versa).  Until Google goes 
somewhere else!  So the whole 'myth' of Internet doubling every 100 days to me 
is something someone (ODell it seems) made up to appease someone higher in the 
chain or a government committee that really doesn't get it.  IE - it's marketing 
talk to quantify something.  I guess if all the ISP's in the world provided a 
central repository bandwidth numbers they have on their backbone then you could 
make up some stats about Internet traffic as a whole.  But without that - it 
just doesn't make much sense. 

Just my .02
Kenny