[1831] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: A bit of facts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David J. Farber)
Thu Jan 2 16:18:24 1992
Date: Thu, 2 Jan 92 15:55:27 EST
From: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu (David J. Farber)
To: martillo@azea.clearpoint.com (Joachim Martillo @ azea)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 92 15:40:12 EST
> From: martillo@azea.clearpoint.com (Joachim Martillo @ azea)
> To: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu
> Cc: com-priv@psi.com, martillo@azea.clearpoint.com
> Subject: A bit of facts
>
>
> Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 18:27:25 EST
> From: farber@central.cis.upenn.edu (David J. Farber)
> Posted-Date: Wed, 1 Jan 92 18:27:25 EST
>
> Just to bring a bit of facts to some of the discussions.
>
> When the DS3 network started , DS 3 routers were not easy to build --
> they still are hard. IBM did a fine job of doing that!! We can maybe
> do better now but that's now!!
>
> Maybe, I don't understand all the intricacies, but I am puzzled at the
> assertion that DS3 routers are hard to build.
>
> DS3 is a 45 megabit service. Several vendors have been selling for
> several years ethernet/token ring/fractional T1 routers which can
> handle aggregate bandwidths of approximately 100 Mbs. Well, taking
> 4lan interfaces off of one of these boxes and installing a reasonable
> serial interface which can handle T3 speeds should produce a quite
> good DS3 router. There is no obvious reason why the government had to
> provide IBM, which is not a router company, with its own private test
> bed for router development at government expense. An open bid would
> have made more sense.
First, it is not trivial to do it. It is "beyond the scope" of this note
to explain why but try it and you will find interface cards etc are real fun
to build -- at least were till this year (1991).
Second I will not comment on the open bid nature of the DS3 activity.
My comments were aimed at the facts not the politics -- I have published
much about those already :-)
> Dave
>
> (one of the authors of the NRC report)
>
> Joachim Carlo Santos Martillo Ajami
>
>
