[nanog] Re: Microsoft offering xDSL access

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1

We are part of the Bell Atlantic ADSL trial in Northern VA -
basically BA has 6 CO's with terminating ADSL modems. This is
aggregated onto a FDDI ring between each CO on cisco's. One of the
CO's has a port into the BA SMDS cloud which is the interconnect
with participating ISP's who also have a port on the SMDS cloud.
So basically, packetize the data as early as possible to get the
20x plus economies of scale vs hauling channelized circuits.

Of course, this is orthogonal to xDSL; the same economies of scale would
apply with T-1 local loops.

Seems to me that for the RBOCs, the big disadvantage of xDSL is losing
all those fat, high-margin T-1 local loop fees. The advantage is
getting a shot at taking over the Internet business.

Jim Shankland
Flying Fox Computer Systems, Inc.

2

Two problems with this...

1) If the RBOCs try to keep status quo with the T1 situation, the cable
companies may eventually eat the RBOCs' lunch.

2) The RBOCs can deploy fewer HDSL-based T1s due to Near-End cross-Talk
(NEXT) concerns... ADSL doesn't have a NEXT problem so they can deploy
many more ADSL loops than HDSL loops in the same cable sheath... In this
case, volume will win over keeping prices high...

--zawada

Paul J. Zawada, RCDD | Senior Network Engineer
zawada@ncsa.uiuc.edu | National Center for Supercomputing Applications
+1 630 686 7825 | http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/People/zawada

3

The problem isn't the local loop. Its how you get the data anywhere ELSE
after the local loop has provided its piece.

A T1 from us, for example, is $600 a month - WITHOUT the circuit.

Its $600 regardless of whether you use tin cans and string, a HDSL DS1, a
traditional DS1, a wireless DS1 using whatever, or genies flying around with
the bits.

The reason is that the local loop cost is not included in the price!

Now, ADSL can affect local loop prices (downward). What it can't do is
change the basics of how data is transported on a national and international
scale, and THAT is where the cost components that go into the $600 fee come
from.

Anyone claiming they can deliver T1 speeds for $30-40 a month is lying given
the current state of interconnection expense across real distances. Quest
and others laying fiber will not lower these costs by 95%, which is
PRECISELY what has to happen to hit those targets.

Now, if you want to *CLAIM* DS1 speeds but actually deliver something that
looks more like an ISDN connection, then its possible. But where I come
from advertising something you can't deliver is commonly known as fraud.

4

Save your breath, Karl; I've been banging this drum for _months_ now,
or more, in a half dozen venues, and no one's getting it.

The only thing I can figure is that the morons in question are going to
quote, for legal purposes, "peak" or "burst" bandwidth, which is
moderately safe initially, because the initial customer base will be
largely surfers... but if you give people bandwidth like that full
time, the server population will _skyrocket_... which they won't
account for... the cableco's have already blown this one.

Cheers,
-- jra

5

The only thing I can figure is that the morons in question are going to
quote, for legal purposes, "peak" or "burst" bandwidth, ...

Well, sure.

Let's have a show of hands: today, who gets 53Kbits/sec throughput on
an X56 dialup? Who gets 1.544Mbit/sec throughput on a T1? Hmmn,
looks pretty quiet out there.

Everyone's overcommitted, nobody can provide full pipe bandwidth on the
connections they're selling now. This isn't news.

It's also true that customers are going to get crabby if there isn't a
lot of local bits that they can get to with their spiffy ADSL
connection, but the telcos may have a small clue. There's an ADSL
trial down the road in Ithaca which is very successful, and one of the
big reasons is that the users for the most part are connecting to
Cornell University which has both more internal and external bandwidth
than most continents.

I talked to the local Time-Warner guy, who agrees that when they
install Roadrunner, they'll get a connection to Cornell as well (which
won't be hard, since Cornell is talking to them now about buying
bandwidth to connect up around town.)

I suspect that the real market for xDSL will be as much telecommuting
as web surfing, and so long as the telecommuters have a fast enough
connection to the office which will probably not be very far away,
that's all they care about.

6

Let's use the oh-so-lovely information superhighway metaphor for a moment.
Imagine a city street with lovely homes on it, large lots, beautiful
flower gardens in front, children laughing and playing. Now imagine the
specifications for this street and for the driveways coming off it. Those
zoning rules and engineering plans say that the street and the driveways
must be engineered to handle a full size semi truck. The street needs to
be wide enough and straight enough to accomodate such trucks and the
driveways have to be wide enough that such a truck can turn into them.

But wait, what's that sign at the end of the street!? NO TRUCKS! Horrors,
there is a legal case here of mammoth proportions. When a street is
designed to handle truck traffic then there must be an implicit promise
that trucks can drive there. Who cares if the residents are annoyed by
truck traffic. They have no choice in the matter, they are mere
homeowners, not designers and builders of *ROADS*!!!

There are no simple answers to any of the network problems posed by the
widespread deployment of ADSL, but one thing is sure. The solutions will
not all come from the domain of network engineering.

7

> Save your breath, Karl; I've been banging this drum for _months_ now,
> or more, in a half dozen venues, and no one's getting it.

Let's use the oh-so-lovely information superhighway metaphor for a moment.
Imagine a city street with lovely homes on it, large lots, beautiful
flower gardens in front, children laughing and playing. Now imagine the
specifications for this street and for the driveways coming off it. Those
zoning rules and engineering plans say that the street and the driveways
must be engineered to handle a full size semi truck. The street needs to
be wide enough and straight enough to accomodate such trucks and the
driveways have to be wide enough that such a truck can turn into them.

But wait, what's that sign at the end of the street!? NO TRUCKS! Horrors,
there is a legal case here of mammoth proportions. When a street is
designed to handle truck traffic then there must be an implicit promise
that trucks can drive there. Who cares if the residents are annoyed by
truck traffic. They have no choice in the matter, they are mere
homeowners, not designers and builders of *ROADS*!!!

Yes, Michael, but, c'mon, this _is_ a weak analogy. Happens my dad was
a traffic engineer for 20 years, up North<tm>, and I can tell you that
while you _can_ take a moving van into a residential neighborhood
occasionally, if you tried to traverse those roads on a regular basis
with trucks loaded more heavily loaded than that, you'd find that, in
fact, those streets _are not_ designed for truck traffic.

Also, the _reason_ for that is that external constraints make it
impossible _to_ design residential streets for that sort of traffic --
which is usually not the case in the environment we're discussing.

Unfortunately, that's not really the argument we're having. The
argument we're having is that we really wish the developers would quit
advertising that the subdivision _is_ designed for trucks, then getting
annoyed when all kinds of truck drivers try to buy houses there, and
get pissed when they find out the developers _lied_.

There are no simple answers to any of the network problems posed by the
widespread deployment of ADSL, but one thing is sure. The solutions will
not all come from the domain of network engineering.

Nope, many of them will come from false-advertising prosecutions by the
FTC, unless the providers get a clue. People _want_ big hoses into
their houses... and a noticeable chunk of those people do _not_ want
them for the reason that the big marketroids _think_ they do. If they
don't get a clue, they're going to be up for fiduciary duty lawsuits
from their shareholders... and I'll go buy a share, just for the
privilege of filing.

Cheers,
-- jra

8

Then you agree that we don't need to discuss the topic here, correct?

9

>The only thing I can figure is that the morons in question are going to
>quote, for legal purposes, "peak" or "burst" bandwidth, ...

Well, sure.

Let's have a show of hands: today, who gets 53Kbits/sec throughput on
an X56 dialup? Who gets 1.544Mbit/sec throughput on a T1? Hmmn,
looks pretty quiet out there.

Everyone's overcommitted, nobody can provide full pipe bandwidth on the
connections they're selling now. This isn't news.

yes, but those people aren't usually selling a wide enough hose to make
it useful for resale or server operation, which the ADSL stuff _will_.
It's a different target audience, because of that, and I don't think
they get it.

I suspect that the real market for xDSL will be as much telecommuting
as web surfing, and so long as the telecommuters have a fast enough
connection to the office which will probably not be very far away,
that's all they care about.

_I_ think it will be "personal printing presses", as much as anything
else. But I've been wrong before. Course, I've been _right_ before,
too...

Cheers,
-- jra

10

Jay R. Ashworth wrote: