[17154] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: different thinking on exchanging traffic
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jay R. Ashworth)
Sat May 23 12:56:47 1998
Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 12:39:13 -0400
From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us>
To: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <199805230302.WAA28906@us.networkcs.com>; from Tim Salo <salo@networkcs.com> on Fri, May 22, 1998 at 10:02:47PM -0500
On Fri, May 22, 1998 at 10:02:47PM -0500, Tim Salo wrote:
> I have two conflicting notions about the the interesting possibilities
> offered by nationwide layer-two services:
>
> o Layer-two services with distance-insensitive pricing, such as
> ATM, create some interesting opportunities. If it doesn't cost
> any more to get across the country than to get across town, why
> should I build a local NAP rather than a nationwide NAP? (Unless,
> of course, I am a RBOC and am administratively constrained from
> offering inter-LATA service.) (I am also ignoring a comparison
> of a NAP-in-a-closet/POP/parking ramp versus a
> NAP-in-a-metropolitan-area; this is e-mail to nanog, not a
> paper for Sigcomm.) Perhaps more relevant today, why should I
> build a regional Gigapop, _if_ my ATM pricing is truly
> distance-insensitive? (There might be an answer to the last
> question, I really don't know. But, I keep asking.)
>
> In other words, if pricing is distance-insensitive, why do I
> need local exchanges?
Forgive me, but kee-rist! Haven't I bung this drum enough this month?
Because, more and more as the net penetrates, the traffic is more and
more _local_. Geographically local. My point about MAE-East-in-a-garage
was that there was only _one_ of them; where it _was_ was only thrown
in for spite.
Especially as the net becomes more used for telecommuting, there is
absolutely _no_ sense in my having to telnet from St Pete 30 miles to
Tampa via a router in Maryland or San Francisco, "just" because the two
sites in question decided to buy their connectivity from different
backbones.
> o Distance matters. It is easy to configure an IP network over
> a large layer-two service that bounces packets around the country,
> (because IP routing protocols generally think in terms of hop
> count, not [physical] distance). It would be nice if
> routing protocols thought about [physical] distance, rather
> than require the network designer to be responsible for
> designing the network such that considerations of physical
> distance were implicit in the network design. Of course, in the
> good old days before distance-insensitive-priced services, this
> wasn't such an issue.
I don't know if it's _possible_ to push this into the routing layer --
even if the routing protocol decides not to ship those 30 mile packets
3000 miles... it doesn't _matter_ if there's no link to _put them on_.
It's obvious that it's time for my nap (no pun intended), my underscore
quotient has shot through the roof.
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth jra@baylink.com
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