roundtable: Re: feast-or-famine, FYI from Edupage

roundtable: Re: feast-or-famine, FYI from Edupage

Re: feast-or-famine, FYI from Edupage

Curtiss Priest (cpriest@juno.com)
Fri, 01 Aug 1997 13:07:20 EDT 

To: ROUNDTABLE@CNI.ORG
Subject: Re: feast-or-famine, FYI from Edupage
Message-Id: <19970801.130601.8055.1.cpriest@juno.com>
From: cpriest@juno.com (Curtiss Priest)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 1997 13:07:20 EDT


--------- Begin forwarded message ----------
From: Andy Oram <andyo@ora.com>
To: cpriest@JUNO.COM
Subject: Re: feast-or-famine, FYI from Edupage
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 12:03:34 -0400
Message-ID: <199708011603.MAA05344@ruby.ora.com>


Kirt, IMHO, is calling for an ideal situation but not recognizing what's
feasible now.

Organizations with high volumes of information to transmit -- video, 
for instance -- want faster lines, and they don't want to be held back
because some individuals are downloading a brand new version of the 
Linux kernel that evening.

The organizations will get the bandwidth somehow. Some ATM-based services
are starting to be offered, and dedicated private lines have always been
an option. Why shouldn't the open Internet meet the needs of people who
require dedicated bandwidth? I think all the ISPs are trying to keep 
that market.

As real-time applications like video become more common, I think it 
would be socially valuable to incorporate them on the Internet rather 
than let private ATM networks capture that market. (IP and ATM are not 
mutually exclusive, of course; I'm just looking at how industries will 
develop.) If the new services stay on the Internet, they will probably 
be more available to small users and can be mixed with traditional 
Internet media like email and the Web in exciting ways.

Various new routing systems (RSVP, for instance) are being developed to
offer different tiers of service. Unlike Kirt, I don't see these either
as imposing unbearable costs or as making the rest of us into third-class
citizens of the Internet. Bandwidth will have to grow to accommodate new
services, though I agree with Kirt that the telephone companies aren't
doing what they should to provide it. People with specialized 
applications that need more bandwidth will pay for it; the rest of us 
should go ahead as always without noticing a difference. Am I being too 
optimistic here?

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Andy Oram  O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.       email:  andyo@oreilly.com
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--------- End forwarded message ----------

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