From my point of view (from my customers' point of view) the Internet in
the US is failing right now. It hasn't collapsed, but some parts are almost
unusable due to congestion. I think lots of people are working hard to
improve that situation and I do think it will get better over time (and
then it will get worse again and better and ..., just as it has in the
past). I do think communication about who is doing what, could be better.
I say this as a customer of an NSP (MCI) as well as an NSP manager myself
(MichNet a regional network in Michigan).
So I agree with Bob a lot more than I agree with Jerry or -mo.
-Jeff Ogden
Merit/MichNet (the non-RA half of Merit)
>From my point of view (from my customers' point of view) the Internet in
the US is failing right now. It hasn't collapsed, but some parts are almost
unusable due to congestion.
IMHO a good portion of this is due to overstressed WWW servers and/or
undersized links to very popular WWW server sites. This is not a network
problem, per se, it is a problem caused by and solvable by the people who
operate very popular WWW server sites. One site that is getting worse and
worse is http://www.zdnet.com which carries things like MacWeek and PCWeek.
I think lots of people are working hard to
improve that situation and I do think it will get better over time (and
then it will get worse again and better and ..., just as it has in the
past). I do think communication about who is doing what, could be better.
Classic problems caused by stupendously amazing growth rates....
P.S. have a look at http://www.interop.com/metcalfe.html if you want to
read an interesting retrospective by Bob Metcalfe.
Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com