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TOPIC:

Altrustic routers would optimize the Internet

4
Michael SlavitchPerson was signed in when posted
02-15-2003
03:02 PM ET (US)
 That's not true. For most big pipes the packet is either originated from or destined to a customer, be that customer a terminus or another carrier.

However the lack of co-operative interopability, rather than passive, which is what we have now, is the root of the problem. Why can't I get an MPLS circuit to CNN.COM so I can download war porn in near real time? Because there is no real mechanism to set up the circuit along the way. Within a single carrier, yes. There is zero interest in changing this because as soon as this becomes a co-operative service the service itself becomes a commodity, and the price per instance goes way down. And the business is run by beancounters, remember?

However, it's precisely when a service becomes a commodity that it becomes really useful. Cellphones were a useless rich boy's toy once, now they are ubiquitous, and are a much more valuable item in the world because of that, for everyone.
3
BuckyrealPerson was signed in when posted
02-15-2003
11:57 AM ET (US)
 The "Big Pipe" companies are all about capitalism and makeing each-other look bad. "Oh, this packet is from *insert competitor's name here* better route it back through Chicago."
2
Michael SlavitchPerson was signed in when posted
02-15-2003
08:13 AM ET (US)
 Trouble is that:

1) routing is now a commodity.
2) bandwidth is not being saturated in the backbone,
    where the "money" wants things to be.

The only place this idea could have any traction would be in areas where there is a datacomm arena where the technology is not mature, where there are bandwidth issues, and where there is enough money to be made (or where it's open source) to make the exploitation of this technology economically worthwhile. The "downtown cores" of the net, be it may. Nobody will tear out their infrastructure or upgrade all their routers just to support this, unless Cisco magically declares it the best thing since sliced bread and forces it on the customer. Which may be a good thing.

There is only one clear target arena in the current technological climate:

WiFi freenets that are getting saturated, using free software to ease the pain on homebrew routers, and again this would only work within the participatory area. In cases where there are multiple ingress/egress points to this participatory area there would be an advantage in that everyone gets their fair share, and that the providers of free ingres/egres points get equally clobbered.

Just a thought.

Michael
1
RevJim5000Person was signed in when posted
02-15-2003
01:28 AM ET (US)
To me, this article seems to make the same point as the story posted by Mark a little while ago about the guy who eased rush hour traffic by cruising. Funny thing, synchronicity.
http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.html
Edited 02-15-2003 01:29 AM
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