Michael Thomas wrote:
On 02/27/2015 02:52 PM, Naslund, Steve wrote:
What is that statement based on? I have not seen any outcry for more
symmetric speeds. Asymmetry in our networks causes a lot of
engineering issues and if it were up to the carriers, we would much
rather have more symmetric traffic patterns because it would make
life easier for us. Remember that most carrier backbones are built
of symmetric circuits. It would be nice but the users generally
download more than they upload. That is the fact.
Average != Peak.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Marketing, and the stupidity of marketeers.
Seriously.
I spent a few years of my life, back in the 1980s, consulting to various
DoD agencies - and I can't tell you how many times my role was to defend
ethernet purchases (made by IT departments) against Telcos who were
pitching ISDN at the General Officer level ("you don't need these
new-fangled ethernets, an ISDN switch will handle all the data you need).
I also got dragged into some discussions with, then, New England
Telephones ISDN marketing folks. At one point, after lots of talk about
how 64kbps was all you'd ever need for any reasonable data activity I
made the observation that uploading a 1MB file, over their ISDN X.25
packet service would cost something like $100 in usage fees and take two
minutes. Their response was "who'd ever need to upload a 1MB file?" I
kid you not.
Of course, I later found out that NET did have some folks who understood
- it's just they were all working on selling their brand new Frame Relay
service - still only 64kb, but at least the cost was a bit more
reasonable, and the marketeers understood what they were selling, and to
whom.
Meanwhile, today, we still see commercials talking about how much faster
one can download an entire HD movie over <brand x> cable system's higher
speed service. Not generally how people are using the net.
Miles Fidelman
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
