Re: Metcalfe strikes again!

[Michael Dillon <michael () memra com>]

On Tue, 7 May 1996, David J. Sharp wrote:

> iii. Mabey Bob Metcalfe is partaliy right, (not on the Chicken Little -- sky
> is falling stuff,) but on the need to educate the masses who are swarming to
> their nearest Internet POP.  The Internet is still not the place for mission
> critical (I hate that word) applications. 

Neither is the North American highway system. Construction projects slow
and reroute traffic. Major cities have rush hour congestion. Earthquakes
damage bridges and highways. Flood waters rise over highways. Highways are
sometimes washed out by flash floods. Accidents block traffic. Accidents 
destroy mission critical cargo when trucks crash. I could go on....
Why should an information highway be any different? It lives in the real
world too and as was said before: s**t happens.

> If your business depends on 100%
> availablity, then you are in the wrong business. 

Let's be charitable and say, "you are using the wrong network". It is
probably possible to build a WAN with five 9's or greater stability if you
overbuild enough in an intelligent manner. But that's not what the public
Internet is. Doesn't the US miltary operate its own telephone system for
just that reason.

>      Could it be that the Internet is going through a growth process similar
> to what the telephone industry went through.  Although I am not old enough to
> remember, I have heard there was a time when it was quite unreliable.  Why
> does the present US phone system work as well as it does?  Was it federal
> mandates on quality of service?  Was it the MaBell monopoly? 

I always tell people that the Internet and computer technology of today is
like the Model T Ford; just getting "mass production" under control.


Michael Dillon                                    Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc.                                 Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com                             E-mail: michael () memra com

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