[5146] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Internet II is coming...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Browning)
Wed Oct 9 18:08:14 1996
From: Jim Browning <jfbb@atmnet.net>
To: "chris@nap.net" <chris@nap.net>,
"perry@piermont.com"
<perry@piermont.com>,
"zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu"
<zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu>,
"'Sean Doran'" <smd@cesium.clock.org>
Cc: "nanog@merit.edu" <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 14:53:54 -0700
>From: Sean Doran[SMTP:smd@cesium.clock.org]
>Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 1996 2:28 PM
>
>Finally, I assert that we are already at the point where anything
>that can be deployed today that is based on ATM (which incidentally
>typically rides over SONET/SDH) can be kludged up (or even done right)
>with Cisco gear and SONET/SDH. ATM has a temporary edge in being
>multivendor and making it easy to do TDM-style and point-to-multipoint
>things, however the former is likely to be short-term and the latter
>is something that can be done better for Internet traffic anyway,
>with a bit of cleverness in the latest and in the next generation
>of IP routers.
"IP Unter Alles", in other words, right?
Okay, I'll take the bait. This past weekend, we demonstrated (1)
video-conferencing, (2) streaming video, (3) 155 Mbps to the desktop
Internet connectivity, and (4) connectivity to the Public Switched
Telephone Network, all over our ATM OC3c backbone, simultaneously and
continuously. #1 & #2 can be either IP or native ATM, and in this case we
ran it over IP. #3 requires ATM, although you can get close to it using
other technologies.
But what about #4? Connection to the PSTN?
Please explain to me how to, in a non-kludgey manner, provide the PSTN
connectivity using only Cisco routers. I certainly believe that most
customers would consider speaking into a microphone attached to their PC
and listening to the PCs speaker just a tad on the kludgey side. Not to
mention that they would need an extra sound card to avoid having to say
"over" every time they were through speaking. No, I think they want to use
the nifty 900Mhz Sony cordless phone they just bought at Circuit City, and
have a level of service (note I avoided the dreaded 'Q' word) similar to
what they get from their POTS line.
Oh, and by the way, given that the local loop provider has OC-48 SONET
provisioned to this particular location, we could just as easily have
provisioned the connection to our backbone at OC12 as opposed to OC3. Did
I miss the Cisco announcement of an OC12 IP-SONET card?
>Since these routers will be needed with or without ATM, the time
>to ponder whether ATM really has that much added value in the
>long run is upon people already.
As is the time to ponder how all the various technologies can work well
together. What is long past is the time to flame a technology which has
already become an integral part of the Internet infrastructure, and which
will remain so for a long time to come. There are plusses and minuses to
the widespread deployment of ATM, just as with *any* technology, however it
does have some undeniable advantages, and one of them is its ability to
carry voice traffic independent of IP traffic, and to connect in a
reasonably straightforward manner to the PSTN. Would you prefer to have
voice traffic clogging up the IP backbone??
--
Jim Browning
"My views do in fact reflect the views of my sponsor, and I am now going to
go look for that asbestos suit said sponsor provides to those of us who are
inclined to support the merits of ATM on Nanog"
