OT: If you thought Y2K was bad, wait until cyber-security hits

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

(shooting self in foot...)

Just eliminate tech support and proprietary software! "A list of our
settings is available at www.domain.com/settings. And don't call us with
tech problems. We don't do tech support."

I know of at least one ISP out there already doing this. Not that they're
highly successful, but imagine not having to tell someone, "Yes, your
username and password are case sensitive and must be spelled exactly as
supplied. And it's .net, not .com" ever again.

Or alternately just require registration through a BBS system as a clue
test. :slight_smile:

(Waiting for visit from the sales/marketing/shareholder folk...)

Best regards,

2

http://www.flex.com/

Unfortunately, it looks like they took down the hate mail page, which was
hysterical. *sigh* They target clueful users only, and seem to be getting by
just fine. http://www.flex.com/adsl/ has a bit more of the "intelligent users
only" pitch.

3

: On Mon, Jul 22, 2002 at 10:00:44AM -0700, alan_r1@corp.earthlink.net said:
: >
: > (shooting self in foot...)
: >
: > Just eliminate tech support and proprietary software! "A list of our
: > settings is available at www.domain.com/settings. And don't call us with
: > tech problems. We don't do tech support."
: >
: > I know of at least one ISP out there already doing this. Not that they're
: > highly successful, but imagine not having to tell someone, "Yes, your
: > username and password are case sensitive and must be spelled exactly as
: > supplied. And it's .net, not .com" ever again.
:
: http://www.flex.com/
:
: Unfortunately, it looks like they took down the hate mail page, which was
: hysterical. *sigh* They target clueful users only, and seem to be getting by
: just fine. http://www.flex.com/adsl/ has a bit more of the "intelligent users
: only" pitch.

One of Hawaii's fun things... :wink:

http://www.flex.com/net_status/fan_con.html

scott

"sorry sir but i find AOL easy to use, i didnt know that since AOL is a
helluva lot easier to use than freakin IE im considered computer
illteritate, just quit bashing AOL, not all of us are sado-masochists."

*heh* no need to comment, but it surely is begging for it... :slight_smile:

4

I met del at a mini "Computer Expo" at Wailea, Maui in '96. He was dealing Blackjack in his booth for prizes (I won an external
14.4 modem) and giving away "beta test" dialup accounts. I thought that 'shaka.com' was cool, so after 6 months of free beta, I
signed up and have been with them since.

--Michael

5

There was some mail being tossed around earlier about Cogent
having latency. I'm actually seeing this on PSINet (Now owned by
Cogent.) Is anyone else still seeing the latency they were experiencing
earlier?

Derek

6

Yes, it's horrid. I've been peering with PSI for going on three years, and
it's never been as bad as it is now.

oddly enough, we see 30+ msec across a DS3 to them, which isn't that
loaded (35 to 40 mb/s).

Then, behind whatever we peer with, we see over 400 msec, with 50% loss,
during business hours.

7

40mb/s isn't "loaded" for a DS3?

--Phil

8

Nah, that's not loaded. Its not loaded until you make it go in to alarm by
passing traffic:):).

9

bwahaha, 2 funnee. I gotta think most people would be thinking of adding
another ds3 at that point.

    Bri

10

You certainly would, except for the fact that the provider is in
bankruptcy and won't/can't answer the phone.

We wanted to do an oc3 or oc12 or gig-e, but that was replied to with,
"wha?"

11

I call any upstream link 'over capacity' if either:
1) There is less than 50mb/s unused
2) The circuit is more than 50% in use

I guess by my definition a DS3 is always 'over capacity'

--Phil

12

I call any upstream link 'over capacity' if either:
1) There is less than 50mb/s unused

That must work well for T1's and DS3's.

2) The circuit is more than 50% in use

I call it 'over capacity' too, but that doesn't mean all the ducks are in
a row to get both sides to realise an upgrade is needed, and even if they
do realise it, to actually get it done. I am sure 2238092 people on this
list can complain of the same problem.

So, what do you do? You monitor it's usage, making adjustments to make
sure it doesn't get clobbered. You can easily run DS-3s at 35 to 40
mbit/sec, with little to none increase in latency from the norm. Many
people do this as well, even up to OC12 or higher levels all the time.

I guess by my definition a DS3 is always 'over capacity'

Which must work very well for those DS3's doing 10 to 20 mb/s. Do you
upgrade those to OC3 or beyond?

-- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben --
-- Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net --

13

Actually, I wouldn't think about getting T1, DS3 or OC3 in the first
place :wink:
Oc-12 is the minimum link I would even look at -- and my preference is
gig-e... Even if there is only 90 megs on the interface...

--Phil

14

Just remember that while a 5 minute average may not be at 100%, the
microbursts are probably quite a bit over that.

For an ISP who actually cares about making money it's not *easy* to say
"I'm terminating my peer to PSI because of their degraded performance and
unwillingness to upgrade", but a de-localpref'ing is probably a good idea.
:slight_smile:

15

Good for you, Phil. Chime in again when you've got something useful to
offer.

In the meantime, you may want to review Economics 101 along with certain
queueing schemes, especially RED (no, I'm not endorsing the idea of
oversubscribing to the extreme, but then again, neither was Alex).

Also, re-read the previous post. There's a big difference between choice
and facility.

Did you grow up spending Summers in the Hamptons with no conception of the
value of a dollar, or are you simply trolling?

-brian

16

With the price of transit where it is today:
#1 Transit is often cheaper than peering (if you factor in port costs on
public exchanges, or link costs for private exchanges)
#2 The difference in price is likely not large enough for me to risk:
saturation, latency, etc...

My customers pay me to provide them a premium service, and I see value
in providing that service.

Some people have no problem selling cogent -- what can I say... You get
what you pay for...

And no, I'm not trolling. Is having a different opinion not allowed
now?

And 40mbit over a 45mbit circuit, if it is to an uplink/peer -- well, if
he has customers who are connected at 100mbit switched uncapped (likely)
-- then many customers (possibly even some DSL customers...) can flood
off his peer links with only a 5mbit stream.

--Phil

17

40mb/s isn't "loaded" for a DS3?

if you are measuring 40mb at five min intervals, micro peaks are pegged out
causing serious packet loss.

randy

18

My point exactly -- I guess some people disagree...
Probably with any sort of queuing there will only be minimal packet loss
at 40mbit, but at any point one more stream can push it up to 43mbit,
and then queuing might no longer be enough... (and even if it is, can we
say lag?)
--Phil

19

Is there patch or special config example available that would allow me to
use mrtg (or rather rrdtool) to measure more often and then graph it in a
way that would show standard 5-min graph but also separate line showing
those micro burst and actual peak usage?

20

Efficient packet loss is still packet loss. Just because you manage to
make the link "look good" by slowing down TCP before your queueing latency
starts going up doesn't make your network any less ghetto.

IMHO the biggest problem in peering is getting the other side to actively
upgrade links to prevent congestion. If you're not in a position where you
can dictate terms to your peer, move traffic off it and let economics take
care of the rest. Leaving a congested peer up for your own benefit at the
expense of your customers is one of the surest ways to lose customers to
someone who doesn't.

I'd rather have a noncongested gige public peer than a ds3 private peer
any day.