Re: Ungodly packet loss rates

[alan () mindvision com (Alan Hannan)]

  Hola,

> > > In other words, the big players don't like the "open" naps and 
> > > are deliberately not installing sufficient bandwidth to them?

> > No, the open NAP's are bad engineering and the big players are fixing the
> > topology by routing around them.

  No no no no no.

> But people keep claiming that some naps are well engineered and have 
> excess capacity and that the problem is the size of the pipes leading 
> to them.  Adding more pipes is easy enough, leading to the conclusion 
> that there are other factors at play.  

  Yes, well, maybe, no, not really.  (except about the more pipes, see [*])

  The NAPs are well engineered (for the most part) and are rarely if
  ever the source of ANY packet loss, ANY latency, or ANY
  congestion.

  Period.  (well, not really... the links into the IXPs are often
  full, but not because they "can't afford another link" or "want to
  squeeze someone" but rather because they put all the sympathy
  peers on that one link/ixp (hint: rhymes with Twit, sort of...)

  The ISSUE at stake here is "how well connected" a particular
  ISP/NSP is to all the other NSP/ISPs.

  Now examine at the (virtual/peering) connection between two
  providers, Bigger and Smaller.

  Bigger wants Smaller to pay.  Smaller wants to pretend they're
  bigger, and not pay.  Bigger tells Smaller to take off.  Smaller
  then has to buy connectivity to Bigger, and generally gets a
  poor-er connection (more hops).

  Larger wants to peer with Bigger.  Bigger wants to peer with
  Larger.  Would they rather peer betwixt themsleves, or through a
  public exchange?

  Customer sits behind Smaller.  Customer signed a contract w/ no
  QOS.  Customer should give money/resources to IPPM.

  In all of the above three issues (granted they're created for the
  purpose...) the larger issues is economics and politics.  Not
  technology or capacity.

  This whole thing smacks of child labor, minimum wage,  and unsafe 
  medicine.  The public is too silly/stupid/naieve to demand quantifiable 
  numbers tied into contracts.  Elysium forbid that the government ever
  mandates it....

  -alan

   [*] adding more pipes into an IXP is not a trivial issue,
       certainly it is possible to design a system that allows you
       some semblance of balance across the lines, but the linear
       growth of lines is not at all scalable, especially as the
       traffic grows in certain regions and the economies of scale
       for regional/private IXPs increase.....
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