[350] in Resnet-Forum
Re: Double Dipping
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Charley Kline)
Thu Sep 15 14:05:32 1994
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 1994 12:43:35 -0500
To: nelsonp@GBMS01.UWGB.EDU (Philip Nelson)
From: kline@uiuc.edu (Charley Kline)
Cc: Resnet <resnet-forum@MIT.EDU>, kieperd@GBMS01.UWGB.EDU
At 12:25 PM 9/15/94, Philip Nelson wrote:
>But the modem lines support more than one person at a time, possibly 4 to
>1. Via modem a user gets only VAX based services, at least until slip
>connections are made available. We use off the shelf modems and garner
>stats from the terminal server though this may not be fully adequate as the
>modem pool expands. I agree that per port cost for ethernet ports is
>lower. But multiply that by 3 or 4 users per line and factor in the extra
>time spent on ethernet card installs and software setups and I think the
>modem looks pretty good.
True, but: My modem pool has a user community of about 9000, about 2000 of
whom dial in on any given day. With only 250 modems, they are massively
overloaded and there is a lot of contention for ports and lots of whining
about how access is impossible due to busy signals. One also has to factor
in that modems give only a tiny fraction of the bandwidth an Ethernet
would. So clearly the quality of service is much different, and the price
difference, even after multiplying by 3 or 4, still doesn't make it look
very attractive.
And our modems support SLIP and PPP, so the type of access a savvy user can
get is identical to that of Ethernet. Just far slower.
/cvk
