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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!solace!news.stealth.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!hunter.premier.net!news.uoregon.edu!Symiserver2.symantec.com!news From: tedm@agora.rdrop.com Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: single to multiple IP address mapping Date: 17 Oct 1996 05:29:14 GMT Organization: Symantec Corp. Lines: 102 Message-ID: <544g7a$aao@Symiserver2.symantec.com> References: <53i58m$gsc@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> <53r2ag$a7@anorak.coverform.lan> <jasonsDz9zIz.FE1@netcom.com> <3262950C.5851C774@lambert.org> Reply-To: tedm@agora.rdrop.com NNTP-Posting-Host: shiva4.central.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.2.5 In <3262950C.5851C774@lambert.org>, Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> writes: >E. Jason Scheck wrote: >] How could you possibly know the details of the contract that >] he has with his ISP? In particular, I've never heard of a >] "per-user" ISP license. Why should the ISP care how many >] users use a connection; they only care about bandwidth. (Yes, >] I know, I'm assuming that the world is logical; it is a fault >] of mine). > > >More realistically, ISP's overcommit their bandwidth on the >assumption (generally correct, for a one-person-per-connection >scenario) that a give connection will exhibit a certain level >of activity characteristic of a single user. > >This lets them support more than 53 simultaneous modem users >with just a T1 line (1.5M/28.8K = 53.3333), which in turn lets >them charge less for a 28.8K "sparse" connection than they would >have to charge for a "committed rate" connection. So far so good >One of the big markets for management software is connection >usage tracking software to enable ISP's to find people who >violate the assumptions (and generally, the contract; if the >ISP is not naieve, he has spelled out "acceptable use"). > Ha Ha Ha Ha >Feel free to act as your conscience directs, but note that your >short term gain will result in long term losses for everyone >(at the very least, normal users will have to bear their share >of the usage monitoring costs to trap abusers like you, and that >will increase what they have to pay the ISP, with no increase >in benefit to themselves). Terry, I usually agree partly with what you say but this is flat out wrong. Here in Portland, we have a ton of ISP's. Every little hole-in-the-wall computer store thinks they can strike it rich setting up an ISP. None of these small fry have much in the way of contracts. It would be wonderful if they did, but they don't. Lest you think that this is confined to the small fry, earlier this year I did a proposal for the company I was working for at the time who wanted to directly connect to the Internet. I called at least 20 different ISP's asking pricing, etc. I also talked to the large ISP's: MCI, Netcom, Sprint, UUnet, and AT&T. I asked specifically about a guarenteed bandwith contract, as well as guarenteed uptime. None of them had any such thing, and none of them were interested in writing a special contract. They all have the attitude that bandwith on the Internet is nothing that they have any control over. You talk about the poor ISP. Well, I for one would be happy to sign a guarenteed bandwith contract spelling out just exactly how much data I was permitted to suck down over my link, and all the costs. Of course, conversly, this contract would spell out the minimum bandwith that my service provider would make available at any instance, and what penalties would occur if they failed to do so. I would love to see more people doing stuff like this, and hopefully when Microsoft finalizes Catapult there will be a ton of no-nothings that will run out and get unlimited dial-up accounts, and jam them up the entire day long. This will not force the ISP's out of business, on the contrary it will force the ISP's to start monitoring their own networks, measuring bandwith, and acting like professionals instead of a bunch of yahoos. Take a look at the public telephone network to find an example of a professionally managed network. You talk to any long-distance company, and they can tell you exactly what the traffic is in any segment of their network, they actually _plan ahead_ expansion projects, and their contracts that they sign with their customers spell out exactly what the obligations of each party are. What is really going on on the Internet today is that all the ISP's are like drivers on the highway who are voting for the new tax measure to expand the city bus system. Each of the drivers is thinking "I'll pass that tax measure and get all the other yahoos off the road into the busses to make more room for me" The ISP's are all thinking "The Internet needs expanding but I'll just wait for that other ISP to spend the money to make his lines bigger to make more room for my traffic" What is really going on is that all the other ISP's are thinking the same thing and waiting for you to spend the money so they can dump all their traffic on you! In Portland here we have a ton of ISP's but guess how many are connected to each other? NONE! This despite the fact that a lot of Internet traffic here is intra-city. If I dial up the local UUnet drop, and send a packet to a website located at the local library, do you think it travels through the UUnet drop through a ten mile dedicated link to the Netcom drop and then down to the library's feed? NO! Instead, the packet travels two thousand miles away to some gateway in Alabama, then another couple thousand miles to some other gateway in California, then another couple thousand miles to some gateway in New York, until finally travelling back to the local drop! Until the World Wide Web starts looking like a real web and less like a spider, with MCI, Sprint, and BBN/AT&T as the hubs, I say let the locals drag the network into the soup. That is the only thing that is going to force the little local ISP's to start contemplating things like "You mean I really should buy a router with 10 sync interfaces and plug 4 of them into my competitors across town?" Sheesh!