Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id PAA10384; Tue, 27 Aug 1996 15:32:17 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 15:32:17 -0400 (EDT) From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Message-Id: <199608271932.PAA10384@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu Subject: TELECOM Digest V16 #444 TELECOM Digest Tue, 27 Aug 96 15:32:00 EDT Volume 16 : Issue 444 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Why is the Internet So Slow? (Poll Dubh) Re: Why is the Internet So Slow? (John Dreystadt) Re: Internet Overload (Mark Ganzer) Re: Internet Overload (Jack Perdue) Re: Internet Overload (John Pearce) Re: Is the Internet Slow? (John R. Levine) Re: Rural Internet Access (Stan Schwartz) Re: Microwave Rural Phone System? (Michael J. Wengler) Re: Microwave Rural Phone System? (John R. Grout) Re: Will Full Number Portability Occur? (Al Varney) Re: Atlanta 911 and COCOTs: The Bomb Call Transcript (Matt Simpson) Re: Nine Digit Phone Numbers (Linc Madison) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: singular@oort.ap.sissa.it (Poll Dubh) Subject: Re: Why is the Internet So Slow? Date: 27 Aug 1996 13:39:09 GMT Organization: Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate In article , Steve Schear wrote: > Most people who complain of slow Internet access do so when using Web > browsers, since its now the most widespread real-time Web use. A great I am not one of these. I have observed abysmal performance (not to mention lots of dropped connections) with plain telnet and ftp (various combinations of client and server), even with rexec connections -- you can hardly get more frugal than that, using /bin/ed as your editor. The one thing I haven't tried, out of politeness to fellow users, was turning to UDP instead of TCP. (You supposedly win by not backing off when successive retransmissions fail.) The problem was plain congestion on our transatlantic link, aggravated it seems by some difficulties of Nysernet's during those months. Things improved (they are still not great) when the transatlantic link was upgraded. > article on this topic was in the May Boardwatch Magazine, "Bandwidth > Arithmetic," pg. 8 (http://www.boardwatch.com). The conclusion of the > article is that though some backbone bottlenecks are an overrated source of > delays and that much or most are due to inadequate Web server resources > (bandwidth and/or server performance). The conclusion may be true for the typical user in the USA, and I certainly won't disagree with the statement that most clients and servers are missing features that would make them robust under high-latency conditions. (How many ftp servers don't support RESTart? How many of these "Swiss Army Browsers" that try to do all protocols can't make use of restart even if it's there?) But when ping shows me 40-60% packet loss, I blame the network fabric, not the end-points. ------------------------------ From: johnd@mail.ic.net (John Dreystadt) Subject: Re: Why is the Internet So Slow? Date: 27 Aug 1996 03:27:19 GMT In article , wollman@halloran-eldar. lcs.mit.edu says: > 2) The protocol. The primary protocol of the World Wide Web, HTTP, > runs over the primary protocol of the Internet generally, TCP. In > order for standard TCP to work, every connection involves no fewer > than three round trips from the origin to the destination. A single > round trip can take as much as a second or two depending on how and > where each end of the connection is attached to the network. A > modified version of TCP, called Transaction TCP or T/TCP, reduces this > to two round trips, but it is not widely deployed. None of this would > have come into play if HTTP had been designed better to begin with; > work is progressing to fix HTTP so that it no longer requires a new > connection for each request, but it will be some time before this is > widely deployed. While there is much value in the overall message, there are some technical errors in this paragraph. The HTTP protocol does not use TCP/IP but instead uses the connectionless cousin, UDP/IP. I am not entirely certain what the references are to "connection" in this paragraph but I suspect "transaction" is the correct word. I am not sure of the number of round trips a single transaction takes in the HTTP protocol but three seems reasonable. A missing issue with the standard HTTP protocol and the interface between the server and the browser is the handling of multiple files. A standard web page often has many individual graphic files. The standard model for HTTP involves what is best described as "browser side includes". The main file for the web page is brought over to the browser and the browser parses the file. Each graphic file within the web page causes an individual file transfer using the HTTP protocol to occur. It would be much less burden on the net to do "server side includes" where the server read the file and included all of the graphic images. There are issues about caching that my simple description has entirely ignored but I hope you can see my point. Just remember that HTTP and the Internet in general is a giant work in progress. John Dreystadt ------------------------------ From: ganzer@dilbert.nosc.mil (Mark Ganzer) Subject: Re: Internet Overload Organization: NCCOSC RDT&E Division, San Diego, CA Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 04:01:10 GMT TELECOM Digest Editor (ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu) wrote: > Beth Gaston of the National Science Foundation which helped develop the > Internet backbone (NSFNET) is quoted discussing plans for a so-called > 'Very High Speed Backbone Network Service'. Various other network adminis- > trators are quoted in the article as well. You may wish to review the > article in detail at http://www.suntimes.com. 'Very High Speed Backbone Network Service' aka vBNS is an already existing network that links the NSF-funded Supercomputing sites at OC-3 and OC-12 speeds. MCI is the carrier. For further information, take a look at: http://www.vbns.net BTW: your standard Internet traffic won't traverse vBNS, due the the famous NSF "Appropriate Use Policy". It is strictly for ue by researhers in the NSF community. Mark Ganzer Naval Command, Control & Ocean Surveillance Center, ganzer@nosc.mil RDT&E Div (NRaD), Code 4123, San Diego, CA Ph: (619) 553-1186 FAX: (619) 553-4808 ------------------------------ From: jkp2866@tam2000.tamu.edu (Jack Perdue) Subject: Re: Internet Overload Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 22:46:52 GMT Organization: Silicon Slick's Software Supplies and Support Services ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) wrote: > An article in the {Chicago Sun-Times} for Sunday, August 25 > You may wish to review the article in detail at http://www.suntimes.com. Can someone point me towards the Sun-Times' back-issues (ie. yesterday's). I can't seem to find them on their page. TIA, jack jkp2866@cs.tamu.edu [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wish I could give information on this but I do not know the details. The Sun Times is 312-321-3000. PAT] ------------------------------ From: jpearce@rmii.com (John Pearce) Subject: Re: Internet Overload Date: Mon, 26 Aug 1996 20:49:45 GMT Organization: Rocky Mountain Internet Inc. Today's {Wall Street Journal} (Monday, Aug. 26) presented a full page spread (B1) on the Internet issue. In all, I think the writer presented a fair picture of the situation. When I think about a "meltdown" of the Internet, I think in terms of something like the AOL problem or the Netcom problem with their routers. I also read an article someone posted about badly formed DNS updates coming into their system and causing problems. The possibility of a "meltdown" seems real to me given the growing traffic load, technical problems as with the routers and DNS updates, reflective routing by certain backbone operators, and various technical problems. Of course, I just sit at my PC watching while Windows NT Server SP4 from ftp.microsoft.com arrives at about 0.4K per second. John Pearce [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not certain but I believe this may be the same article which appeared in the {Sun-Times} on Sunday. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 26 Aug 96 22:45 EDT From: johnl@iecc.com (John R Levine) Subject: Re: Is the Internet Slow? Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg, N.Y. > Sprint, which supplies off campus access for many colleges is heading for > one. There are times that you are online and the system just seems to go > to sleep. I have typed in data and it could take upwards of five minutes > to appear on screen, sometimes it takes so long that my software thinks I > have stopped using the system without hanging up and drops. I have > complained about that and modem ports that don't answer or answer > and don't reply. Here's another misinterpreted point. People observe that their provider gives lousy service and concludes that the whole net is melting down. Yes, Sprint has had its routing and congestion problems, but slow echo and dead modems are certainly the responsibility of the local provider, in this case your school. One of the nice things about the Internet is that it's so well integrated. You connect to a site around the world the same as you connect to one around the corner. But the flip side of that integration is that when something breaks, it can be far from obvious where the problem lies. John R. Levine, IECC, POB 640 Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 387 6869 johnl@iecc.com "Space aliens are stealing American jobs." - Stanford econ prof ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 11:44:37 EDT From: Stan.Schwartz Subject: Re: Rural Internet Access In message PAT wrote: > Bill Gates is to be praised for the donation he made to the Chicago > Public Library system getting them 'online'. Now if Gates and a few > others would just do the same thing for libraries all over the United > States, so that even if there was no Free Net in town, people could at > least go to their local library and participate in the net. And in TD439, PAT wrote: > TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I am not sure if their bureaucracy in > the Chicago Public Library has yet managed to accomplish anything with > the money Bill Gates gave them. (A million dollars, several months > ago.) Had it been me, I'd have been out shopping that afternoon and > within a few days to a week had things up and running. But you know > how things go in Chicago; for all I know they may have squandered most > of the money by now paying for some consultant or two to tell them how > to spend whatever little was left over after the consultants looted > the purse. PAT Fortunately, the same is not true here in Charlotte, NC. Big Bill was here a while back, gave up some money, and Charlotte (Actually "Public Library of Charlotte and Meckenburg County) won a 'Library of the Year' award last year. Bill was back again in April to give up some more money. PLCMC's 'Virtual Library' is like nothing I've seen anywhere else. Workstations with MAC's and/or PC's with current software, internet connections, and all the toys, all for the public to use. Last week, I had a friend visiting from New York, and when I suggested that we visit the library in order to get a photo scanned, he thought I was a bit crazed. An hour later, we're sitting in front of a Gateway P5-90 with a 21" monitor and a color flatbed scanner creating .JPG's and .GIF's from some vacation pictures. He was quite impressed. The Virtual Library can be visited at http://www.charweb.org, or e-mailed at virtual@plcmc.lib.nc.us. If I remember correctly, there's also a way for library patrons to browse the library catalog from home and reserve books on-line as well (I've only done this once, about a year ago). Stan (stan@vnet.net) [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The public library here in our village of Skokie, Illinois is really a wonderful place. They've got several computers set up with Netscape running on them available to anyone who wishes to sit down and use them. Nice printers are attached to each so you can get copies of anything online that you need. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 07:57:50 -0700 From: Michael J. Wengler Reply-To: mwengler@qualcomm.com Subject: Re: Microwave Rural Phone System? On 8/16/96, Dave Perrussel wrote: > I work for a company that has a field station in the middle of > the New Mexico desert. > Is there a commercially available product that will do a high > bandwidth (say 14,400 baud or 28,800 baud) using point to > point microwave that is reasonabally priced? Take a look at which lists cordless telephones with ranges from 3 to 70 miles. They might do the trick. They are apparently not exactly licensed for use in the US, but I don't know if that means they won't sell you one or not. [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I think at the time you purhcase the phone(s) you have to certify that they are not intended for use in the USA and are being shipped to some other country. That gets the seller off the hook; how was he to know your intentions were not honorable? I know that years ago such certifications had to be signed by the purchasers of Citizens Band radio equipment which because of its power output or other considerations was not 'quite' legal in the USA. PAT] ------------------------------ From: grout@polestar.csrd.uiuc.edu (John R. Grout) Subject: Re: Microwave Rural Phone System? Date: 26 Aug 1996 15:14:29 -0700 Organization: Center for Supercomputing R and D, UIUC In article Scott Nelson <73773.2220@ CompuServe.COM> writes: > On 8/16/96, Dave Perrussel wrote: >> I work for a company that has a field station in the middle of >> the New Mexico desert. >> Is there a commercially available product that will do a high >> bandwidth (say 14,400 baud or 28,800 baud) using point to >> point microwave that is reasonabally priced? > Try Carlson Communications, and inquire about their Optiphone. It is > a VHF/UHF device that I beleive you can license privately that will > give you "toll quality" voice and data communications over the > distance you are talking about. At one time, I knew that their > product was strictly analog (as is a POTS line); however, they may > have a digital version which will go above 28.8 kb/s. Not sure about > that, but ask and let us know. > Sorry, but I can't find their phone or address in my files. I know > that their listed in {Telephony Magazine's} buyers guide. I thought I > even had Jim Carlson's e-mail address somewhere around here ... nutz! They are now "OptaPhone Systems", described by their WWW site as a subsidary of Carlson Communications, Inc. Their WWW site is at URL http://www.asis.com/optaphone and their sales email address is: sales@optaphone.com (Alta Vista is a wonderful thing :) John R. Grout Center for Supercomputing R & D j-grout@uiuc.edu Coordinated Science Laboratory University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ------------------------------ From: news@ssbunews.ih.lucent.com Subject: Re: Will Full Number Portability Occur? Date: 27 Aug 1996 15:32:06 GMT Organization: Lucent Technologies In article , wrote: > In article , Lou Jahn > <71233.2444@CompuServe.COM> wrote: >> While the FCC has just started LEC's moving toward Number Portability >> several of us were arguing whether "Full" Portability will ever occur >> (or how far does the FCC plan to go)? > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Al, what I do not understand is how > anyone could be expected to know where they were calling or how much > it would cost if phone numbers could be taken all over the USA. If > I took my 847 number and moved to California then what would happen > when my next door neighbor in California wanted to call me? I assume > they would dial my 847 number but would telco in California first > assume the number was in Illinois and look over here to the telco > to get instructions on forwarding it back to California, etc? I > think portability in a geographic sense would be a disaster. PAT] Some other questions: If you took your 847 number and moved to California then would you want California calls to be 'local' or would you want calls to other 847 numbers to be 'local'? Or both? Would you want your California neighbors to treat you as "one of those Illinois yokels" because you kept the 847 number? Or would you also want a "California-NPA" number? Answers/predictions (just my opinion, of course): - As telecom usage rises and prices fall, folks will be more willing to place calls without knowing the exact costs -- look at cellular usage. (Note that some folks pay more to take their own money out of ATMs than for many phone calls - it all depends on "what you're used to".) - Allowable location portability areas will grow to LATA- or NPA- wide as the costs for intra-LATA Toll drop, overlay NPAs become common and 10-digit dialing becomes the norm. So long as costs for nearby vs. far-away intra-LATA Toll calls differ by 100% or more, there will be consumer obstacles to increased location portability. Once the rates flatten, there will be less pressure for a 'Toll Warning Tone' and all the problems inherent in such a scheme. - Local competition will slowly expand the flat-rate 'local calling area' even for the current LECs. New competitors in the residential market will be after inter-LATA or cable or Internet-usage revenues, and will be willing to 'give away' flat-rate to the whole LATA, at least for a while. New competitors have indicated that the current LECs should be restricted from offering expanded calling areas, at least until competition is firmly established. - Those providers with long-holding-time flat-rate customers will find disincentives for retaining them. It will be politically impossible for the dominant LEC to convert flat-rate service (free/single-message-unit) for 'local' calls to usage-sensitive, even with competition, for many years. But monthly rates for such callers will likely rise -- unless they generate off-setting revenues with Toll/inter-LATA/International calls using the same carrier. In other words, artificial pricing differentials will disappear, but package deals will flourish. - Second-lines used for Internet/data connections will expand. Economics indicates there are likely to be Internet-only providers who offer only full-time connections (cheap leased line rates), but you won't be able to dial-around to other ISPs via those lines. No carrier will want switched nailed-up connections -- unless there are revenues covering the costs. - Local competition will allow cheap 'Toll' (say $1/hour) for wider areas. - Local competition will make Centrex, WATS and access charges lower. Owners of local loops will increase return on investment. - Local competition will change some local customers to 'pay-per-call' because the monthly rate for a big 'local calling area' will be more than the (say, five-cents + quarter/hour) per-call charge. - The FCC will finally "unprotect" the Compuserve/etc. service providers and move to uniform tariffs for ALL connections to the telephone network (you can start the "modem tax" thread again, Pat :) ) But access charges will be very low for IXCs, Cellular companies and any other service provider. Lower access charges and interconnection agreements will make 'bypass' obsolete. - The competition in the local market will initially focus on customers that make a lot of non-local calls. Depending on access charge rules and cost-sharing rules for local competition, customers that primarily receive calls may be shunned (unless they are toll-free customers). Rules will determine whether private network customers will find tax or cost reasons for becoming a TELCo themselves. - Some customers will be losers because of local competition. Those generating large revenues to carriers will not lose. - The only incentive away from cost-sensitive pricing will be bundled deals (which in effect are cost-sensitive pricing averaged over more items). - TELCos will get into the information content area, because that's where the money is -- today. If you want more accurate predictions, ask Dataquest for theirs. We disagree in some areas. They believe flat-rate pricing will disappear, for example. My predictions are worth somewhat less than you paid for them. Dataquest's are probably worth a lot more. Al Varney ------------------------------ From: msimpson@service1.uky.edu (Matt Simpson) Subject: Re: Atlanta 911 and COCOTs: The Bomb Call Transcript Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:17:42 -0400 Organization: University of Kentucky Computing Center In article , Howard Pierpont wrote: > My point was that if the Dispatch had moved some forces to the > location of the phone, I bet someone would have known where Centennial > Park was without needing an physical address. Didn't they already have forces in Centennial Park? With the amount of security coverage in Atlanta, I think all major public areas had tons of security. Also, while the dispatchers were struggling to find an address, there were already police in the area of the bomb, starting to move the crowd in case it was a bomb. I'm not sure "whose" police those were (Atlanta? State? Nat'l Guard? private security? anybody remember the details?). If they had been aware that a bomb threat had been made, they probably would have moved much quicker. It seems that the problem was not that nobody knew where the park was, but that the dispatchers were not able to communicate with the forces that were already there without giving their computer an address. Matt Simpson --- Lead Systems Programmer, MVS University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY msimpson@pop.uky.edu http://rivendell.cc.uky.edu A programmer is a machine for turning beer into code ------------------------------ From: Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com (Linc Madison) Subject: Re: Nine Digit Phone Numbers Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 00:57:32 -0700 Organization: Best Internet Communications In article , btabac@dmr.ca (Bob Tabac) wrote: > Nine Digit Local Numbers > With the introduction of nine digit phone numbers and keeping the > existing three digit area codes we will be able to collapse many area > codes. > state/(province/territories)/other countries. An area code such as > 495 etc or whatever could be used for each state! > For example in Ontario: > if nine digit numbers is established > ie 416 number 555-2333 > could become 41555-2333 > ie 905 number 555-6777 > could become 90555-6777 How do you propose to distinguish between (416) 415-5523 and (495) 41555-2333, dialed as local calls from within the current 416 area code? Your scheme does not permit any "permissive dialing" period, which is absolutely essential for a change of this magnitude. "Waiting to see if you dial any more digits" is an unacceptable answer to the question. > And there is no pain of changing area-codes for a very long time once > this system is established! By the year 2000, California will have 26 area codes. At the current rate of growth, we would exhaust a nine-digit number space for the state some time around 2020, maybe sooner. As to the comparison between nine-digit local numbers and four-digit area codes, one of the possible plans is to expand to four-digit area codes and eight-digit local numbers simultaneously. That would give us enough capacity to allow every man, woman, child, and domestic appliance to have several numbers. (Never mind that it may be a bit confusing if your toaster's pager is in a different area code from the blender's cellphone.) Linc Madison * San Francisco, Calif. * Telecom@Eureka.vip.best.com ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. 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A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V16 #444 ******************************