[898] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: internet consumer reports on state-wide IP networks
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Edward Vielmetti)
Wed Jul 3 13:13:14 1991
To: Richard Mandelbaum <rma@tsar.cc.rochester.edu>
Cc: Craig Partridge <craig@sics.se>, com-priv@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Jul 91 09:36:04 -0400.
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 91 12:56:29 EDT
From: Edward Vielmetti <emv@ox.com>
Absolutely right! I find it almost impossible to use the phone system
because the carriers refuse to tell me how they are routing my
phone calls. I guess that was why Western Union decided not to invest
in telephones. They knew that without telephone routing maps it would
never be as easy to make a phone call as use the Highway system.
When I look in my Michigan Bell "Ameritech Pages Plus" directory I see
lots of maps -- a LATA and Area Code map for the state, an Area Code
and Time Zone map for the country, zip code directories, street maps
and street indexes of several of the surrounding cities, a map from
the local transit authority, and hundreds of little maps in the Yellow
Pages telling people how to get to their business, even a diagram of
some sports stadiums so I know where the good seats are. What's
missing is the little map that used to show me where my local calling
area was; that's gone and replaced with a table of exchanges and
numbers (ick).
Maps as finders aids are an important indicator of how usable the
network is going to be. At the very least you should be able to look
at them and determine whether your industrial affiliates (or your
competitors) are on the net, to see where you might find people with
similar interests, or to get people's email addresses without having
to go to a phone book.
Serious telecommunications enterprises, which depend on high
reliability and stability in the face of network outages, demand (and
get) assurances from their service providers that they have alternate
routing available. Go to the fiber bypass companies and they'll tell
you where they are routing your nets. One backhoe in Harrisburg might
take out the whole state of Pennsylvania; that's something that you
would want to know. Worse yet, you might think that your internet
service provider has redundant circuits, only to find out that they
all go through the same conduit.
--Ed
ps. Richard, please include the obligatory distinguishing mark when
you are trying to be funny :-)
