[2596] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Network World article Raises New Questions on T-3 Network
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Erik E. Fair" (Your Friendly Postm)
Thu Mar 19 03:25:58 1992
From: "Erik E. Fair" (Your Friendly Postmaster) <fair@apple.com>
In-Reply-To: <199203190727.AA07921@Menudo.UH.EDU>
To: Stan Hanks <stan@casc.math.uh.edu>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 92 00:23:48 -0800
As it happens, the Apple Engineering Network includes one T3 microwave
link to a facility about two miles away from our main campus. We've had
this link for about two years. It is implemented with NSC EN641 routers,
with NSC T3 CSU/DSU's (I've forgotten the model), so we are familiar
with NSC's T3 equipment.
The catch is that this link is HYPERChannel, and is thus unable to
speak AppleTalk - a serious omission in our network. We cover for it
with a separate T1 leased line just for AppleTalk. We're not in a
tearing hurry to replace the NSC equipment with cisco stuff, but it
would be nice to nuke the T1 line, and get rid of the last bit of
HYPERChannel from our network.
It strikes me as odd that T3Plus Networking would say to you that the
"by-the-book" HSSI spec would lose, since they (according to the
announcements I read a year or more ago) were involved in writing that
spec in the first place...
Also, why is it "cheating" to do your own discrete implementation of
anything? Often, the first revs of chipsets that implement standards
have various bugs in them. I remember some unpleasant things that were
discovered in the early revs of the Rockwell chipset implementation of
CCITT V.32 (as deployed in commercially released modems!). That stuff
works well now, and that's what has made 9600 baud modems so cheap.
However, those manufacturers who did their own implementation of V.32
did not suffer those bugs...
Erik E. Fair apple!fair fair@apple.com
