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Technology Stocks : Frank Coluccio Technology Forum - ASAP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert Sheldon who wrote (756)	12/17/1999 9:24:00 PM
From: ftth	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1782

OK, infinite bandwidth and infinite routing/switching capacity at every point in the internet. All the world's problems are solved now and for ever. Then...reality hits. Can't be done. Infinity can't be grasped let alone implemented. There are millions of simultaneous flows on the internet at any given instance. They can start anywhere and end anywhere. Their size is unknown beforehand and their clustering in time is unknown. So what's your solution to big comprehensive bandwidth, if it's not infinite? A Petabit of signal flow capacity at every node of the internet, and then hope the entire network remains static in terms of its connectivity growth and flow rates forever, and hope that no portion ever goes down and that traffic is rerouted down "your" path? And how do you instantaneously implement this petabit capacity simultaneously across all points in the network, so that no one is left pissing away their investment because "someone else" hasn't upgraded yet? Different classes of traffic have different requirements. Allowable latency varies with class. You simply cannot size every node in a huge network to accommodate the worst case maximum under all conditions, while also meeting any economic constraints. And you certainly can't size it to accommodate future traffic growth levels, because no one knows this. No one knows what the distribution of traffic classes will be in the future either. Try purchasing equipment that has 100,000 times more capacity than "current average levels" in order to handle 99.9999% of CURRENT expected flow and see how far that purchase order goes. Never happen in the real world of just-in-time, just-enough-for-now, purchase decisions. Even if you somehow managed to get the purchase order through, there's no guarantee it wont be obsolete in a year, just as you're flipping the switch to power it on for the first time. So lay out your plan for big comprehensive bandwidth. Be specific and build an economic case for it--one that you could sell management on. State numbers and what those numbers represent. How much will this all cost and who pays for it. Does this equipment exist today? When, then? How long has this company been in existence? How do you justify the expense for the unused capacity that exists most of the time? Please don't tell me that bandwidth will be free because it costs good money to plan, install, operate, maintain, manage, and staff a network round the clock--even a small network. And that's assuming nothing ever breaks. Even with zero network traffic the cash register is cha-chingin' away. dh