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From: Jim Segrave <jes@demon.net>
Newsgroups: demon.ip.support,demon.tech.unix,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Batch FTP and Web Pages
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 11:04:29 +0200
Organization: Demon Internet
Lines: 91
Message-ID: <199607040904.LAA03824@jes.noc.nl.demon.net>
References: <31D4AA3A.BC0@www.play-hookey.com> <31D87436.7C7F@www.play-hookey.com> <836295557snz@dsl.co.uk> <4rcr6v$dh@anorak.coverform.lan>
Reply-To: jes@demon.net
X-NNTP-Posting-Host: jes.noc.nl.demon.net
X-Mail2News-Path: jes.noc.nl.demon.net
In article <4rcr6v$dh@anorak.coverform.lan>,
Brian Somers <brian@awfulhak.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Brian {Hamilton Kelly} (bhk@dsl.co.uk) wrote:
>: The links are *not* slow from our dial-up lines to the ISP; neither are
>: they slow within (most of) the UK. The biggest problem lies in your
>: oh-so-wonderful USofA, where the routers are overloaded and flapping
>: incessantly, and just generally *slow*. People regularly get 3kB/s or
>: more on ftp connections (occasionally, I've been getting them to some
>: sites stateside, by judicious choice of calling time). (I should add
>: that Demon's current peering arrangements mean that all the traffic
>: passes through the notorious MAE-East site, which must be the most
>: overloaded in the universe: it is from *there* that the 200B/s rates
>: originate.)
>
>Rubbish.
No, correct. There have been lots of problems with Sprint, many of
them centred at MAE-East.
... deleted things about broken TCP/IP stacks, they are well outside
an ISP's control
>So, what you're saying is that demon - who recently were applying for
>another class B address space (about 65000 users currently?) have decided
>in their infinite wisdom to invest in a T3? Well, bully for them. Let's
>see, 45,000,000 bits / 65,000 users = 692 *bits* each. Woooooffff !
>I'll get out there and start my 86 byte/sec download now ! Ok, maybe
>that's a bit unfair. They havn't got the capacity to have everyone
>connected at once. Let's say they allow 6000 of us in at once, what's
>that, about 937 bytes per second ? In fact, this *wonderful* T3 will
>allow a staggering 1607 28.8k users to get max throughput. I'd better
>rush home and get in there first.
You are aware that
1) we don't have 65,000 dial in lines, so dividing the bandwidth by
the number of customers is a pointless exercise in arithmetic
2) if we did, it's extremely unlikely all of our users would be
connected at the same time - there's an unconfirmed rumour that
some of our customers have something called a 'real life'
3) that they would all need trans-Atlantic connectivity.
Bandwidth is supplied based on expected demand, not on theoretical
maximum demand. Even telephone companies don't provide sufficient
capacity for every subscriber in a calling area to connect
simultaneously - they provide enough so that the probability that a
customer will be unable to get a line is fairly low.
>The problem is that most of the decent sites are in the US (bar
>src.doc.ic.ac.uk which mirrors a lot of stuff) - certainly, most
>http pages will have links to places in the states - hell, FreeBSD's
>lynx has builtin links directly to it's home-site in the states
>(although they are configurable). We at Demon have only *one* route
>to the states. It should have been a T3 by mid 1994.
No, there wre two, now there are more as the DS-3 is being brought
into service.
>: > Also, what are the chances of establishing a flat fee for local telephone
>: > usage? I have a sneaking hunch that that one factor is *the* primary
>: > limitation in your system, and that you folks in the UK will be held back
>: > until some sort of flat rate becomes possible.
>
>: Not until hell freezes over: there have been multiple rumours about such
>: an approach, but it won't happen whilst Oftel run the telephones. It has
>: even been rumoured that BT *might* like to introduce such a service, but
>: Oftel would never permit that because it would have a detrimental effect
>: on BT's competitors. Anyway, if telephone calls were charged at a flat
>: rate, the ISPs would have to introduce some sort of time-based charging
>: (Demon customers just pay ten pounds a month, regardless of how often or
>: for how long they connect to Demon); that would lead to higher costs,
>: because of the overhead of the accounting and charging operation.
>: Better than a flat rate, anyway, would be *free* calls; charging a flat
>: fee *per connection* encourages people to stay connected for longer than
>: they need, thus forcing up costs (and charges) for ISPs, who have to
>: provide increased capacity: the city of Kingston-upon-Hull has a flat
>: rate charge, and eventually Demon had to close their PoP there, because
>: some anti-social elements were remaining connected for hours, even days,
>: at a time (the record was 8 days, IIRC).
>
>I agree, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with staying connected
>except that demon do not have enough capacity to allow people to
>permanently tie up a modem.
And, as evidenced by the problems in Hull, the telcos probably aren't
ready for that either.