Have a look at Bob Metcalfe's Infoworld column this week at
http://www.infoworld.com/pageone/opinions/metcalfe.htm in which he
discusses the shortcomings of NANOG, IEPG and ISOC in not taking a more
aggressive role in managing the operations of the Internet.
Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com
My lord that article was laughable. Metcalfe really doesn't have a clue.
Yes infrastructure is very strained. Yes the internet is burping and
hiccoughing. Will the *whole thing* collapse? Of course not.
Bob writes: The Internet Society is where to organize the management of
Internet operations worldwide, and to drive the tracking, policy
development, and engineering that would have averted the collapses I've
been whining about since December.
Cook: The ISOC can govern only if it has the allegiance of the
governed. ISOC doesn't have any such allegiance. It had a good
executive director Tony Rutkowskii who is now gone. It had A good
president Vint Cerf who is now doing other things. It has a good new
president Larry Landweber who in the opinion of many I have talked to
represents the interests of the old R&E extablishment. Ask the movers
and shakers of the *COMMERCIAL* internet how many are ready to follow
ISOCs lead. Damned few I hear. For the first part of this year a major
part of ISOCs agenda has been to get Bob Kahn and his CNRI board to give
up his permanent seat on the internet society board of trustees.
Metcalfe: The society has the Internet Engineering Planning Group (IEPG)
for just this purpose. Problem is, the IEPG is not taken seriously
enough. I just read (at http://www.isoc.org) the IEPG's latest reports of
Internet traffic problems. They were dated -- uh-oh -- March 1994.
Cook: Um.... Is it the Internet or intercontinental engineering
ing planning group? Problem is according to Lynch and Rose (1993) this
was a group desgned to provide the planning and coordination necessary to
make the internet work. No where do I see short term planning mentioned.
ISOC has the IEPG for just this purpose? No. Beg pardon. ISOC was
created to give most of the existing internet bodies a legal home as the
commercial internet matured and the federal gov't withdrew. Last traffic
reports march 1994!? Of course! This was the month before the last
gov't funded backbone (NSFnet) was turned off. Since then the traffic
statistics have been the **proprietary** possessions of Sprint, MCI,
UUNET, ANS, etc.
Metcalfe: And NANOG seems not to be grabbing hold and getting them
handled -- alas the collapses.
Cook: NANOG has no power to do any such thing. What does Bob expect it
to do write a nasty letter to Sprint and fine them for not buying 50 new
backbone routers six months earlier!?
Metcalfe: There is still no system of traffic-based settlements among
cooperating Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Cook: Bob has been asking for this ever since the summer of 1993.
Hasn't anyone told him there are some problems with the nature of TCP./IP
that make this highly problematic to attempt. Not to mention the loss of
business that would result for the first provider to try such a stunt.
Metcalfe: ISPs don't report their outages to one another and never to us.
Cook: why in heaven's name should they report them to you!?
The Internet is coping amazingly well with unprecedented growth, if Bob
would listen more carefully to those who are making it work, he'd write
fewer inane columns.
The only way to accomplish what he seems to want is to have the FCC take
over the Internet and run it. All those who want to see a regulated
Internet say "aye!"