Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 14:34:35 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: chuckr@Glue.umd.edu (Chuck Robey) Cc: hasty@rah.star-gate.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Act Now ! Message-ID: <199603072134.OAA14900@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.91.960307101410.30001A-100000@professor.eng.umd.edu> from "Chuck Robey" at Mar 7, 96 10:18:03 am
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> [huge 'Voice On Net' article deleted] > > The point being, if use of the internet stopped being an experiemental > tool and became one tenth as popular as, say, the web browsers, the > internet would stop being useful as a communications medium. The > bandwidth ain't there, and if it was, the swithcing point bandwidth isn't > there either. The internet isn't a viable option for massive replacement > of our telephone network. It's fine for experimenters, and I've been one > of them, but if it stopped being experimental, and everybody joined in, > this would be a disaster. On the other hand, the main problem with the ability of the telephone network to handle bandwidth is the fact that it uses circuit switching so that it can generate accounting records and bill by time rather than by pipeline size (this is also why the phone comapnies are puching ISDN so hard, even though Frame Relay scales better to 128k or higher data rates). I predicted over two years ago (gotta tout your wins! 8-)) that the phone companies would start to feel the pressure from internet based communications tools removing the ability to meter by usage rather than pipe size. And that they would start legal harrassment proceedings. My answer to the "bandwidth" (actually "backbone bandwidth") argument is that the backbones need bigger pipes. 10Gbit is deployed as an experimental system in several locations already, and TCI is soon going to have 60,000 homes wired for 10Mbit full duplex (they already have half that number and are operating successfully). The "switching point bandwidth" is only a problem if they insist on metering instead of flat-rating on the basis of pipe size. If they want to keep that up, fine: I'll be getting my phone service from TCI as well. I don't care who I pay, as long as it is reasonable. 8-). The real grin is that the phone companies, especially Sprint and MCI, have been basically killing each other for a market that is going to boil away to nothing more than low margin pipe-provider services (I also predicted that two years ago... yes!), with the money going to content providers and data-vaulting services. BTW: look for the thread on "server anonymity/content-addressable networking", and the other thread on "connection to services, not servers/datavaulting for distribution" in both the news groups and the -hackers lists to help me count my kills. So far, I'm 5 for 7. "I are a regular pundit" 8-). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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