[532] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Why commercial sites aren't on the net
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian Lloyd)
Fri Apr 5 03:52:24 1991
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 91 23:26:54 PST
From: Brian Lloyd <brian@napa.telebit.COM>
To: MRR@boers.uu.no
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: Morten Reistad's message of 28 Mar 91 20:15 +0100 <9103282016.AA34332@boers.uu.no>
Reply-To: brian@napa.telebit.COM
I am well aware of PPP and have tried hard to find out just what is
going on in this field. Unfortunately everything I have seen assumes
you want to let IP do all the routing, and just use point-to-point links
for interconnecting IP networks. I see nothing especially new about PPP,
except that is is a real protocol instead of the mostly empty protocol
layer SLIP provides. Some gear that multiplexes PPP would perhaps
be an answer, or we could use X.25 (shudder) or Frame Relay as the
network to put under IP for the local loop to the customer.
PPP is progressing along several fronts including but not limited to
Appletalk, OSI, and DECnet. 3-Com is making extensive use of PPP for
interconnecting their bridge/router products. I suspect that support
for IP came first because the IP users recognized the need first and
because the IP users wrote the protocol to solve their own problems.
It is nice that it is flexible and may be used for other protocols.
PPP is intended to provide a mechanism for the transmission of
datagrams. It is a point-to-point protocol as its name suggests. If
you have a network protocol that reaches across the local loop into
the users' premises, by all means use it.
On the other hand there are a great many people who have switched
analog links or who are served by a switched digital service like
ISDN. In those cases it makes more sense to run PPP as the link
protocol rather than expend the effort to run a networking protocol on
a point-to-point link.
Brian Lloyd, WB6RQN Telebit Corporation
Network Systems Architect 1315 Chesapeake Terrace
brian@napa.telebit.com Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1100
voice (408) 745-3103 FAX (408) 734-3333
