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Technology

Are We Ready For Broadband Internet Access? 283

Posted by Cliff from the for-that-matter-is-the-internet-ready-for-us? dept.
barkode asks: "A friend recently asked a mailing list for some comments on a technology his company is introducing, a FTTC (Fiber To The Curb)-like product known as FTTH (Fiber To The Home). FTTC, which has been around for a while in certain areas, is modified from a hybrid of fiber-terminated-at-curb -> coax-to-the-home, to skipping step 2 altogether and providing 100mbit switched and dedicated Internet bandwidth directly to the NIU on the side of the house, providing dialtone, television, and Internet. This generated quite the debate, ending up with a discussion of both why the Internet isn't ready for this, and why Joe User isn't ready for this either. The DoS attack potential is obvious, but should the privledge of 100mbit Internet connectivity be given to someone who hasn't 'earned' the privilege of having that type of influence on a public network? What has to happen before FTTH/FTTC is feasible, and what are the implications of implementing such technology too early?" Interesting thought, although the percentage of people who have access to broadband Internet in the home (much less Internet access, altogether) is not that high at the moment it is probably wise to ask these questions now, rather than suffer the dismal performance of an overloaded global network later.

"The Internet as it is today is obviously not technically ready for such massive broadband connectivity to the end user. Think about one single person being able to saturate a 100 meg peering link at a NAP somewhere (or ten people saturating a gigabit link, etc.). Look at it this way. If you have a 100 meg peer somewhere, you can handle quite a few people on modems hitting your Web site at any given time. Now let's say that all those people have 100 meg connections at their house. Instead of looking at a few pages over a 10 minute session, the user can view a few pages in a 1 or 2 minute session.

Now some people may say that this won't matter, because a session that would have taken someone 10 minutes now takes 2, then they're off, and someone else is on (ie bandwidth dispersion). Not quite, folks. The user is bound to download/view/leech/click/etc *much* more data when their connection is faster. Remember when we all had 2400 baud modems and 80 meg HDs and BBSing all day? If you had DSL you would have filled an 80 meg HD in a snap.

The ratio is out of whack. If the Big Scary Internet Business Dot Com has X Bandwidth, and the Home User has X / 2 Bandwidth (not X / 500) as it should be), there is a BIG problem.

Since we obviously are going to have serious broadband dispersion in the near future, what must be done, legally, technologically, and otherwise in preparation to support such a network?"
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Are We Ready for Broadband Internet Access? More

Are We Ready for Broadband Internet Access?

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  • assumptions about bandwidth... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have recently witnessed a similar project getting launched in a residential area. Huge pipe, no IP's. Yes, they're using NAT. Of course, if you want to pay extra, you can get statics. But the point is, the company is asking these new users to take as 'normal' the fact that the only available services are web and mail. Forget about peer-peer filesharing, or anything else which won't travel across the company firewall. This ISP won't take the chance of incurring liability for J. Random User getting owned, and therefore is cutting off all of these 'extra' services - for everyone. Regular folks get scared when their illusion of security if threatened. Then they call their reps. Then congress makes portscanning into a Class 2 Misdemeanor. (Well, maybe not, but anyway, you get the point)
  • When I lived in the dorms, the first thing I did was set up my firewall to block all inbound traffic from the local subnet. Not reject, but just quietly discard the packets. Then explicitly allow access from IP addresses of friends I want to have access. Works out nicely. Crackers see 'connection refused' and get motivated. When they see "Trying... (30 second timeout)" for each connection attempt, their portscan takes orders of magnitude longer to complete and they likely just give up trying. Silence is the ultimate defensive weapon.

  • I have this (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Well not quite, but close. I have VDSL from Qwest. It's a 52Mb/sec Pipe that passes video, POTS (your phone), and 1024k Internet over the same pair. Just because it's a 100Mb connection, doen't mean your I-net will be that fast.

  • Re:Disagree. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I heartily agree. No one on the internet has "earned" the privilege. Most have purchased it. Academic institutions, which is where I'm sitting as I write this, get the best access (Inet 2/VBNS, etc) are arguably highly irresponsible with it.

    Security: Often nonexistant. Sub-units (departments, etc) may implement security measures, or they may not. There's often no oversight to make sure something happens until and unless a serious compromise occurs. Even then, each department is often independant and whatever central authority exists has very limited power.

    Responsible use of bandwidth: It wasn't that long ago (a few years) that some idiot at a university thought it would be a fabulous idea to webcast an iguana for 24 hours. That, supposedly, is research.

    If consumers want to pay for 100Mbps, give it to them. They'll use it exactly as responsibly as everyone else doesn't. (grammatical discontinuity intentional)

  • The Arrogance of the Techno-Elite (Moderate Down!) (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 10, 2000 @09:03AM (#790475)
    "...but should the privledge of 100mbit Internet connectivity be given to someone who hasn't 'earned' the privilege of having that type of influence on a public network?"

    How freakin' arrogant! No wonder the White House, Judicial System, and Courts are kickin' your asses. Geeks think too much about their precious tehcnology. You think you can control it. Man, wake up!

    And your question is misguided anyway. The idea of "privelege" in a networked, capitalistic economy is nonsense, and generally foolish. It is a non-question. If you have the money, you can buy what you want. If you have rich friends and the right influence, geek and non-geek, you can get what you want. If it is for sale, then no privilege is required.

    I don't give a shit if this is moderated down. I mean, hell it is starting at zero. But for those geeks here reading this, you know that the writing is on the wall. The mainstream power is getting pissed at your arrogance. You can be controlled by them, much more easily than you can control your own technology.

    When the day comes in the coming years, or centuries, when your technology is kicking your ass, you'll wish that you worked more with the rest of the world. When technology controls you, and it will someday because it is one of your goals to perfect it, you will wonder why your elite beliefs can not help you.

    You control nothing. You control less than nothing. Giving "privilege" to those poor, ignorant souls who aren't as smart as you, is a notion that will be your demise. Many people are not technically savvy, but they have money and control. They will find ways to kick your ass. They will learn the technology enough to get by, and they will laugh as they crush you underfoot. Shit, they already employ you during the day. They are already 1/2 way there...

    Put that "privilege" in your pipe and smoke it.
  • Stop trying to be clever.


    - Mike Hughes

  • You're wrong. (Score:3)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:37AM (#790477) Homepage Journal
    I'm a senior in High School. You might be in high school too, judging from the age of your mother, but let me tell you how things are in my town, Thousand Oaks, in Southern California, where a large percentage of the students at my school have cable or DSL.

    First off: everyone (even the jocks) uses Napster.
    Second: everyone (yes... even the jocks) uses AIM or ICQ. This means files are being shared and tons of information is being exchanged.

    Before GTE and Pac bell came in and "saved the day" with DSL and Cable net access, I'd say that maybe 5% of the people who use the net in a bandwidth-intensive manner now were using it in the same way.

    Time and the advancement of technology (synonymous?) is making everyone a geek. Maybe not culturally, but at least in the way that they use the internet so bandwidth-intensively and to their advantage. They know HOW TO already.


    - Mike Hughes

  • You'd have to work really, really hard to saturate a 100 megabit connection *constantly*. (Some peoples' hard drives can't even keep up with 100 megabits/second.) Even people with cable modems aren't *constantly* using them, and those who *are* are usually violating their terms of service by running FTP/HTTP servers (and are usually found, and are usually dealt with).

    I defy anyone to show me how the average home user can constantly keep 100 megabits per second saturated, let alone how 10 such users can swamp a gigabit connection 24/7.

    Also, the comment about "earning" the "rights" to have a lot of bandwidth struck me as arrogant. It's the same type of B.S. I see here about "earning" the "right" to use a computer by learning every single command line tool, as if Linux users are the only "real" computer users on the planet. Comments like that make me sick to my stomach.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • I am looking forward to the day when running http or mail services from home ISN'T a violation of service. I don't want to have to pay some other hosting facility for my low-impact web server. I don't want to pay for colocation when my house is already wired.

    Not all ISPs have "no servers" in their terms of service. Most do. This is one area where DSL providers are generally better than cable modem ISPs. Since DSL lines can be connected to any of a number of ISPs in your area, you can choose ones with AUPs that suit you and your needs.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • I wonder if people have noticed that if you wade through the zillions of "Damn the Arrogant Techno-Elite Slashdotters" posts, the only blatant example of "techno-elitism" is the the original story, and not among the Slashdotters in general.

    Where does all of this pent-up resentment come from? It seems like half the stories are seen as an opportunity (or excuse) to bash on some group, often the Slashdot readership. Does the relative anonyminity of online forums (having an account doesn't mean that anyone actually knows who you are) free people from their usual inhibitions?

    To the posters: Before you accuse a group of a particular attitude, please think about your source of information. Is it one poster who has identified themself with a group? Do you have a good reason to suspect that most of the group shares this attitude? Generalization isn't bad, but over-generalization is.

    Please be careful.

  • Posted by PartA:

    It seems like no remembers about amateur radio, in order to use it, you need to pass an examination, use a call sign, and abide by certain
    rules, what's wrong with that?
  • More bandwidth == more users == more demand for people like me to keep the servers from falling to their knees.

    Wire 'em up first and let the routers sort 'em out.

    The real Threed's /. ID is lower than the real Bruce Perens'.

    --Threed
  • Just because you own a big pipe, it doesn't mean you're going to have that pipe filled 100%. Bandwidth still costs the same, even if you can theoretically fire more traffic to the end user.

    Hell, there are still ISPs that can't even saturate 56k lines at peak hours.

    Since I work at an ISP, we have to consider these issues, moreso than the end user. Rather than explain this every single time, I just wrote a paper and give out the URL: http://netgraft.com/?item=3 [netgraft.com]

  • should these people be given the privilage of having this kind of access to a public network?

    Agreed 100%! Supposedly, the internet is supposed to be all about lowering barriers and leveling the playing field.

    I remember in the '80s using PC Pursuit to BBS around, wondering why the only way to get internet access was to enroll in a university.

    I'm sure that universal 100Mb access will cause a few problems. That's when the 31337 geeks get to prove their worthiness by solving the problems.

    A few notes on the problems: DOS attacks with slave machines wouldn't be as big a problem if there weren't so many poorly configured routers out there. Inside router ports should NEVER accept packets with outside source addresses. That would seriously limit spoofing, and make attackers a lot easier to track down.

    ISPs should offer users a choice between firewalled and unfirewalled access, and explain that if you don't know what firewalled means, you REALLY want it.

  • Internet access is not a right. It's a privelege. Like driving.

    Compared to a dial-up user, the effects of a cracked broadband pipe is like comparing the damage a moped will do compared to a small car. And 100BT just exacerbates the difference. If a box with double the bandwidth of a T3 is cracked, there's a *LOT* that can be done with it in a very short amount of time.

    That said, the notion of "earning the right" is kinda scary in and of itself. But comparing the a doctor to someone who knows how to keep his bandwitdh from being used to do other nasty deeds is plainly stupid. And to think you're the one telling people to climb back under holes.

    Over on IWETHEY [ezboard.com] (my usual hangout), someone floated the notion of charging extra for raw bandwidth as opposed to filtered/firewalled bandwidth, and after giving it some thought, most people agreed with him. It makes a lot of sense. It keeps Joe User from getting in over his head and should make those who think they want raw bandwidth really give it some honest thought. I'd say nearly 100 percent of the people who want a big fat raw pipe to their house don't need anything other than a big fat firewalled pipe. Yeah, they might *WANT* a raw pipe, but they don't *NEED* a raw pipe. A firewall preventing internal connections wouldn't hurt them one bit, because they initiate an outbound connection to get into work. Those that do, really, truely need a bidirectional pipe pay for the privelege.

    I'm willing to do that.

    --
    Ben Kosse

  • I think you are assuming that this broadband will only be used for some kind of PC based browsing.

    This broadband link, whatever it is, will eventually carry the phone traffic, the data for one or more televisions (and radios) in the house, data to be downloaded to the mp6 based stereo system, and everything else.

    I think, the issue with broadband is NOT in the pipes, but in the switching. That's where the bottleneck is.
  • Let's see... Open Source caching systems...

    • Harvest Cache
    • Squid
    • Apache Cache
    • MBone VCR

    That last one is also a reminder that we DO have a multicast-capable Internet, where most of the backbone is already multicast-enabled. This allows information to be distributed on a per-object, rather than per-request basis.

    IMHO, a greater adoption of proxy caching and multicasting will greatly reduce the stress on the network.

    There again, let's also look at these "big corp" networks. Optic Fibre now supports up to 3 Tbit links. If the customers and demand was there, you don't imagine that Big Corp, Inc. is going to just miss out on Big Money, do you?

  • Um... yes? I work at a college, and most of the cracking/DoSing attempts on our network come from the dorms. Most of the ones that don't come from the dorms come from OTHER schools' dorms.
  • Why sell 100M/sec for ~$20 a month into the home when you can sell it for ~$200 a month to a business.

    Simple. There are many, many more people than businesses.

    Let's say you have two buildings of roughly equal size. One is an apartment complex with, say, 200 apartments. The other is a corporation with 200 offices.

    You can sell access to the corporation and get about $200/month at the standard business rate. Or you can sell it to the complex. Assuming only a fifth of the tenants sign up, you have about $800/month (40 people * $20). Furthermore, in reality more than a fifth will sign up; it'll be more like a third at least (that's 67 people, give or take) which nets you $1340/month.

    Which looks like a better investment to you?
    ----------
  • Most of the argument here is hysterical/elitist bullshit.

    "Now let's say that all those people have 100 meg connections at their house. Instead of looking at a few pages over a 10 minute session, the user can view a few pages in a 1 or 2 minute session."

    No user is sitting at their PC 24/7 or 12/7 or even 4/7 downloading web pages at the rate of ...a few pages in a 1 or 2 minute session..." non-stop.

    Nuts. Remember, most computers spend all of their time sitting twiddling wait for us to figure out what we want them to do next. This is particularily true for anyone surfing.

    And how big are the pages, anyway? Web page size *may* grow as broadband becomes more wide-spread, but who thinks *one* web page will ever be, say, a meg in size? Not me.

    So how is this getting even close to saturating a 100mb connection?

    Beats the hell out of me.

    So it doesn't matter whether they're viewing, or serving, the volume's just not there.

    And:

    "The DoS attack potential is obvious, [Wait! Stop! You just went right past the problem!] but should the privledge of 100mbit Internet connectivity be given to someone who hasn't 'earned' the privilege of having that type of influence on a public network?"

    "Earned the privilege"? Excuse me? While you're deciding on privileges, can I please go to the bathroom? Puhh-leeezze?

    "What has to happen before FTTH/FTTC is feasible, and what are the implications of implementing such technology too early?"

    hmm..

    Methinks somebody's just trying to stir up a buzz and -- OH! Looky! -- get a New Product® mentioned at the same time..

    t_t_b
    --
    I think not; therefore I ain't®

  • Which brings us back to the original point. One of the questions that you asked was whether it would be technologically feasible to give everyone broadband. The answer is "probably not." However, when it is, I suggest you step the fuck out of the way and let anyone who wants it have it. You are no more 733+ than anyone else. You might be able to configure a router. Can you remove someone's spleen without killing them? Can you operate construction equipment safely? No? Then shut the hell up about "earning" broadband. Let's see how far you get without doctors or construction workers, even those that don't know thing one about how their computers work.

    Do you give out morphine, demerol, or AZT to anyone who has the money to pay for it?

    When was the last time you saw J. Random User operating a backhoe or a drilling rig?

    The same logic should apply to broadband internet. It's one of the tools of the IT trade. It's powerful, and in unskilled or malicious hands, can be hazardous, just like the powerful drugs and heavy equipment that are tied to their respective jobs.

  • Unfortunately, the police and other law enforcement agencies do not take DoS attacks seriously at all.

    I'll bite at this. Actually, they DID take it seriously. Problem is, the internet community as a whole does _NOT_ take it seriously. I'll bet that 90% of the people posting to slashdot could (if they knew how) spoof their IP and slip it past the (crappy) packet filters of their upstreams. In fact, as an ISP I'm guilty as well to a limited extent: a user can forge the IP of another user on the same dialup unit. One of these days I'll fix that for modems. It is fixed for *DSL at least.

    Until our core backbones take DoS attacks seriously (as in, tracing them back) why the hell should the FBI care? What can they do? Arrest the guy at 192.168.10.10? (Yes, I've gotten hit by UNROUTABLE DOS attacks. Hell, I've seen 127.0.0.x! That's SERIOUSLY misconfigured)

    Sure, my routers drop that crap but my bandwidth is still toasted.

    Wake me up when there's accountability on the internet. Until then it's nothing but a skript kiddy playground.

    --Dan

  • Akamai is awesome, but it would be nice to have an open-source, open-network way to implement this at the ISP level. Does anyone know of any such effort underway already?

    IIRC, freenet [freenetproject.org] handles localized caching..

    Your Working Boy,

  • Re:Indeed. (Score:3)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @03:23PM (#790494) Homepage
    I trust you're talking that "there will come a time in the __UK__ where a customer... can self-install."

    'cause over here in the colonies (ie. Canada), we're already doing it. Two hundred bucks gets you a DSL modem and a handful of socket splitters/bypass filters. Thirty-five bucks a money gets you the ADSL service.

    But, then, Canada has always had pretty much leading telecommunications technology: first microwave transmission systems, first digital switchs, first fiber-to-home.

    Er, yes, that's right: we do fiber-to-home already. The telco's are savvy enough to have realized a half-dozen years ago that it was cheaper to be laying dark fiber than to have to try to retrofit.

    Na-na-a-boo-boo. [grin!]


    --
  • OFFTOPIC? The crack must be especially strong today.
  • Even sillier/more ironic/more disgusting, given that the whole free software movement and the cooperative, voluntary growth of the Internet itself. Younger people growing up with free software who have little sense of history end up being just as elitist and asinine as "THA MAN" they rail against.
  • The founder(s) of Akamai were some of the original coders of squid... so in essense squid is a slimmed down (although increadibly functional) version of akamai..

    just a piece of knowledge...

  • ... in his book An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking [aw.com] that the answer to this problem is ultimately economic: flat-rate pricing has got to go.

    I'm not sure yet if I agree with him, but intuitively his argument makes sense to me, and it's certainly a thought-provoking assertion.

    If I had the book handy, I'd quote him verbatim, and at more length. It's a terrific book, and I encourage anyone interested in networks to take a look at it.

    --
  • And perhaps bytes will cost more at peak times than at off-peak times.

    Perhaps even we'll be able to request the type of performance we want out of the network, and tell it how much we're willing to pay, and get service based on that -- after all, I might not care how long it takes my FTP session to complete, while I want my stock trade to go through as fast as possible, and my streaming audio to arrive with any reasonable delay so long as the jitter is bounded.

    --
  • End-to-end bandwidth across the Internet is already often inadequate to saturate links at the edges of the network. When I was working for an ISP, I regularly fielded calls from customers who thought there was something wrong with their T1s because they were only getting 15K/second or whatever from their favorite site.

    Ciscos report a per-interface five-minute input/output rate. So I would usually get the customer's permission to ping-flood them, and then I'd do so from the router on our end of the link. Meanwhile, I'd have the customer do a "show int" on the router on their side of the link. After five minutes, the rate would creep up to about 1.5 megabits, and the customer would go away satisfied.

    I almost did this for the NYPD once, but they believed me when I explained about net congestion, so I didn't have to.

    --
  • Yes.

    Check out Bellovin and Cheswick's Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker [awlonline.com] if you don't believe me.

    --
  • There are laws about redundancy and availability being built in to emergency services. I wouldn't worry about this, at least not if you're in the USA.

    --
  • "And he is probably wrong."

    Would you care to elaborate on that?

    Tell me more about your profit-sharing idea.

    --
  • Bandwith, like ram or processor power, gains new uses when it increases in power.

    300 baud was fine for all text bbs'. Now with DSL, listening to the radio over the internet, and maybe some low quality tv- is fine. When people have much larger bandwith, they will find new uses for it. TV, videoconferencing, 3D, etc... Don't expect current bandwith usage to reflect opon future usage- users and creators will always, like a sponge, absorb all power they can.

    An interesting article about fiber to the home is in this technology review article [techreview.com].

  • Disagree. (Score:3)

    by joshv ( 13017 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:18AM (#790505)
    First of all - what is this concept of 'Earning' that type of connection?

    Second, yes, broadband users do download more, but there is a limit. I seriously doubt that connecting to slashdot at 100mb/s version 1mb/s (as I now do) is going to seriously increase the amount of data I download from slashdot.

    Most likely users with extremely high bandwidth connections will never utilize even a tiny fraction of the bandwidth, and when they do they will be connection to services (video on demand) that are specifically designed to handle the load.

    -josh
  • If you're really in the sticks, you're best bet is sattelite, you can get bi-directional (real soon now) at real good speeds from gilat sattelite (www.gilat-to-home.com). They won't release final specs, but i've seen it, and it's fast. Cable is you're second best bet, but you probably pay out the nose for rural cable service, and from my experience, you don't get genuine "internet" from a cable comapany. You'll probably get a few incoming ports blocked(25,80,135,137,139), and you might even see some outgoing soon (napster, gnutella, etc).
    Like you said, i wouldn't ever expect to see DSL out your way. GL

    -earl

  • offtopic but... akamai is really hip.. usually I pull ~ 20 - 60K/s over resnet (150K/s when the leeches are out drinking), but the other day I went to download Eudora and got it off an akamai server @ 877K/s. Daaaaamn...
  • So what if people have 100Mbps connections? By the time that becomes at all common, the backbone will be running at multi-terabit speeds. They're already running a terabit on a single fibre in the labs; it shouldn't be too long before that becomes normal for backbone fibres.

    Web sites will be just like they are today: low volume stuff can be served out of someone's home with a broadband connection, and high volume stuff uses an expensive high-speed link.

    So Yahoo, CNN, and Amazon have to upgrade to faster links. So what?

    Actually, the real issue here is what the impact of increased bandwidth will be. Back when I created my first web page in 1994, most people surfed with image loading off. Professional web sites were created by a single person in a day or two. Now professional web sites are full of graphics, animations, and whatnot. There's a much larger gap between commercial web sites and personal ones. The investment to create a serious web site is higher. This gap between amateur and professional web sites will increase. Multimedia will increase.
  • Umm, this isn't going to change anything. If it's available and people want it, they'll pay for it. I doubt it's going to come to signing a waiver and taking an aptitude test before you can get high speed access.

    But don't mind me, I'll be sitting in my corner with my two cans and a string. Haven't been DoS'd by script kiddies yet...
  • That's a good point: let the market moderate demand. If people were held financially accountable for the volume of traffic they generate, they would voluntarily adjust their traffic on their own. Then again, metered network access is long advocated by Ethernet inventor, Bob "Open Sores" Metcalfe, who is not exactly the most popular guy here. Would Slashdot readers be willing to admit that he is right on this point?
  • Exactly. AOL is a germ, virus, or envation of harmful substances onto the net. Do those people really know how the net works? NO.
  • Let me start by saying a work for a company that is currently putting 6-billion, note the 'b", into improving the last mile-experience of customers. The idea is simple, get glass closer to the customer.

    The idea of glass to the curb, or glass to the home is great, but it ignores the simple fact of all the copper that is currently in place, not to mention a few minor details - like how do I provide power over glass?

    In case you weren't aware, the phone company is required by law to provide power to phones within a building so that in the event of a power failure the occupants can still call 911 for help. To put glass up to the house, or even the curb, requires that a device be in place at that point to povide 48v DC to the telephone equipment.

    So, what is my company doing? We're putting glass into the remote terminals, which are the large cabinet-looking devices you see along the roads that service a few blocks, or a buisness park. These are powered already and have elecrtronics in them currently. Thus the only thing realy needed is a DSLAM in the cabinet, and glass pulled from there back to the CO. Very clean, very effective. Once that happens, nearly anyone in a Metro-service area is within 3000 cable-feet of the DSLAM, making even VDSL possible.

    As far as some of the other issues flying around here, like who deserves fast access, and how will it be controlled - Is this the same community that wants to abolish all controls by anyone? Is this the same community that goes on forever about the evil FBI, and corporate security outfits that snoop lines and emails? Why is it that you folks want no fetters on YOUR activity but want all the non-techy Joe/Jane Users out there to be hammered? Out we being just a little bit hipocritical here?
  • Hand-waving about the crisis the PC will face when all of these AOL users get a 32 bit OS is irrelevant. The fact is that the average user WILL get a 32 bit OS, and we should darn well give it to them before Apple or IBM. We can't predict the impact of all new economic or technological changes without some hard cover book sales @ the speed of thought.

    I say, roll out the pretty blue boxes and let the support calls roll in. Sure, our downstream partners may be bogged down in the short term, but at least they'll be calling the vendor instead of us. Then they'd pay to get everything fixed and we can start the cycle again. That's the way technology rollouts work. Release, charge, patch, charge, charge.....

    Sure, it's irresponsible to use your customers to do QA (which is what would happen if we rolled it out tomorrow), but it wouldn't be the end of the world, and it's not going to happen tomorrow. It's going to happen gradually, and gradually, technology will rise to meet the demand.

    William Setag
    CEO Microsift Corp.
    Internal memo on the release of Bimbos'95

  • Indeed. (Score:4)

    by periscope ( 20296 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:25AM (#790517) Homepage
    This is a very valid point and one which should be considered carefully.

    In this country, BT are currently beginning the ADSL rollout and, since they haven't been able to successfully resolve the security implications, access will now be totally non-firewalled for home users by "default". They are expected to use the "correct" firewalling software. Tell me, who honestly thinks that John Doe (or rather, John Smith over here...) is going to have a clue about security.

    Additionally, many home users will not appreciate that the bandwidth they are about to experience is disproportionate to that offered anywhere else - some parts of the world have no access, some are stuck on 9600bps and some now have up to 10Mbit in to the home with 53Mbit a very real possibility in the next few years.

    There will come a time when a customer can walk in to PC world and pick up an "ADSL kit" which they can self-install to "convert" their home access to ADSL. New homes will have ADSL as standard within 5-10 years - are the majority of people really ready for the day that a cracker can h4x0r their ADSL based TV and transmit crap into someone's home. Are people really prepared for the time bomb that is now ticking?

    I recently wrote an article for a Linux magazine targetted to business in which I addressed some of these issues. I'll check some issues with my editor, but I can see no reason why we cannot get the article put up on our website and the URL sent in...
  • It isn't just the power, telephone company equipment is generally engineered and tested to higher standards of reliability than network equipment. The voice network has more redundancy and reliability than most data networks.
  • Bytes transferred may not be the right thing to measure and charge for.

    With the telephone system, the variable costs of running the system are mostly dependent on peak usage, not the total number or length of calls. Off-peak usage just uses otherwise idle capacity.

    With a data network, the optimal solution would be to charge full rate for usage that occurs during peak usage periods, and charge low rates during other times. The idea being that the people whose usage patterns force the network provider to buy more upstream bandwidth should be the ones who get the large bills.

  • these lowly users whom you seem to fear for their ravenous appetite for bandwidth will quickly point out that They don't care what connectivity the corporations have, because they want to share things with their neighbors and friends. Besides, Cisco et. al. will drive this into being whatever the elitist concerns, because while their hardware may be the backbone of the internet, once everyone has the bandwidth they need, the hardware doesn't break fast enough to keep them in business. The only way for them to sell more and more hardware is if there's a reason to upgrade.
  • The Internet provider of 100mb connections should bundle a device such as a 5 port 10/100 switch that is capable of NAT/packet filtering and configure it as part of the installation.
    Now, I'm not saying *require* it, just provide it as the default option. If the user has a *nix box for a firewall (Linux, *BSD, LRP), they should know that the ISP will be scanning the users machines for known vulnerabilities (@Home does this). If you have services running beyond the acceptable use policy du jour, you risk termination.
    Also, I assume that this would be an asymmetric connection. What home would *NEED* 100mb upload capacity? I can see wanting to serve your videos to friends and family - but that's going to be on a protocol that wouldn't be directed at some company on the net. In other words, set limits on certain protocols, like ICMP, that are used in DoS attacks.

    I posted too late for anyone to read this anyway.
  • Why does it piss you off? Who are you to determine who "needs" a fast connection? Do you "need" it any more than "Joe Luser"? And how dare those AOL users touch your internet? The arrogance of them, thinking that they have as much right as you. How dare they? Let's lock them back into their closed networks.

    I don't think it's them who are arrogant.

  • Have your company pay for it then. And if you're whining about 56k access only, how is this the fault of all these "Joe Luser"'s and AOL users? It still gives you NO MORE RIGHT to internet access than any other paying subscriber of an Internet Service Provider.

    I need to get to work in the morning. Therefore I have more right to the road than a bus full of tourists. Bzzt. Wrong.

  • And of course the average Linux "power user" has never been the source of any DoS attack...

  • Arrogance (Score:4)

    by Robert S Gormley ( 24559 ) <robert@seabreeze.asn.au> on Sunday September 10, 2000 @01:15PM (#790530) Homepage
    Exactly. How do you decide that you, as a self-described "power user", has even 1% more right to bandwidth that anyone else willing to pay for it has?

    Simple answer is you don't. If I can afford to have FDDI to my house, tell me by what means you (or any other arbitrary body) is going to determine my "worthiness"? Portscan and try to r00tkit me to make sure I have no security holes in my OS? Demand a login to my system to make sure I'm not planning any DoS attacks? I think not.

    What exactly is meant by "the Internet isn't ready for broadband yet"? If you ask me, it's screaming for as much bandwidth as it can lay its hands on, at all points, be they last-mile or backbone, rural, city or transoceanic.

    And why shouldn't individuals who wish, want, or are willing to pay for, have the "X/2 bandwidth of a corporation"? Give me just one realistic reason, because I'm curious.

  • How do you "Earn" broadband? If they can pay for it, whats the problem? That it isn't 'fair'? Well, the fibre providers have to pay for the bandwidth the are selling to the houses, so what is the problem?

    -- Crutcher --
    #include <disclaimer.h>
  • THis just forces everyone to lock down the OSs as tight as they always should have been. Of course, early adopters face exagerated risks, but they always have, in all technologies. Just because we cann't do it perfectly now, doesn't mean we should wait until we can. That would just mean that nothing ever gets released, and everyone moans about how slow everything is in improving.

    like certain potatoes that one could mention... :)


    -- Crutcher --
    #include <disclaimer.h>
  • [Snip] And that's why the current incarnation, or perhaps all, of capitalism sucks - wealth is granted unproportionately to merit, or even ability, and thus the way society operates is distorted beyond what the people who make up the society themselves regard as 'just'. But then, I can't think of a better way to run a country that will work with us humans as we are (greedy, selfish, ...). Ah well ;-( -- Jon Chatow
  • Each house won't have 100mbit connection to "the net", the house is connected to its upstream, and (more than likely) it shares x amount of bandwidth with other subscribers of the ultra-fast fiber connection. The problems you state come into play if you don't give x an upper bound.

    Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the point of view), the home's internet feed will be what's limiting their access, just like cable modems. Yes, you have 10mbit connection (depending on the provider), but that's just to your cable company's backbone. Then you have to fight tooth and nail to get a chunk of their connection to the rest of the world.

    The world won't end because of this technology for the simple fact that the provider has to pay for the subscriber's bandwidth used.

    .Shawn

  • things often are available on the net before the infrastructure is ready for them, and then technology backfills the new need.

    Yes, I've seen this happen already...

    When ISP's started offering dial-up access, the cry was "but the Internet won't be able to handle all those users - the bandwidth just isn't there"

    Then, when Cable and DSL was first introduced, we heard the same thing...

    And now, we're hearing it again - some people just don't remember the past...

    Yes, when these events happened in the past, there was three months of lag, but it eventually sorted itself out.
  • They are expected to use the "correct" firewalling software. Tell me, who honestly thinks that John Doe (or rather, John Smith over here...) is going to have a clue about security

    One day when I was searching for my box when my dhs address didn't update I scanned the network that my DSL is on. In one class C i found 20+ Alcatel 1000 DSL routers with no password on the administration tools.

    Maybe these people shouldn't have dsl then. I'm not trying to sound elite but you have to know a little about what you're using. With your car you know it needs gas and the oil changed and you learn that as part of owning a car. Now, whether you do it yourself or pay someone to do it is a moot point, you get it done because you have to for the car to function properly.

    Joe User shoudl learn enough to either learn about a firewall or pay someone to do it. If he gets cracked or something else is along the same lines as never changing your oil and wondering why your engine seized.

  • I have DSL through SWBell and they don't mind, they just make sure to point out that it's easier to host off of their more expensive static ip packages.

  • Oops. Guess I didn't read that as closely as I thought :).

  • Bigger backbone (Score:4)

    by AdamHaun ( 43173 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:20AM (#790552) Journal
    With the development of DWDM, terabit switches, and other high-end networking technology, who's to say that by the time we all have 100Mbit connections, the backbone won't be up in the terabit+ range? It's not like technology is just sitting still for everyone else. Remember, the whole Net used to run at 56k.

    As for what happens in the meantime, you can see this already. I'm sitting on a 10Mbit network connected to an OC-3. Sometimes I get 500kbps+, but usually I get closer to DSL speed - 100kpbs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but having a 100Mbit link merely means that you *can* get that kind of bandwidth - not that you *will*. What's to keep the routers from just dividing the available bandwidth evenly among all users?
  • I know you don't have a lot of time, but your comments are always very level-headed and insightful. Post some more, for Pete's (that's me) sake. If I had a moderator point or a cookie, I'd give it to you.
  • And if every Jethro and Mary had an SMTP server running in their house, it would be a spammers dream come true.
  • I consider myself a geek, and I too am dismayed at the high level of arrogance displayed here. The notion of having a "privilege" for a connection is absurd!

    Travel back to '92. "Imagine that someday we might have 56k links to every home. This would obviously saturate the network. Forget the possability of DoS attacks against those poor 1200 baud modem users --- should these people be given the privilage of having this kind of access to a public network?"

    This is EXACTLY what this is, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't been around long enough to see the progression of technolgy.

  • Two Words... (Score:3)

    by TrevorB ( 57780 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @10:52AM (#790570) Homepage
    AOL Broadband

    Welcome to AOL 2000! Now easy AND fast!

    Send messages to friends again and again and again and again and again and again...
  • Please do a little more research into what the 'State-of-The-Art' technology for IP traffic is before you go trawling for opinions.

    There are only TWO things that keep you from haveing 100BaseT to your house to the backbone: 1) Money and 2)Corporate Vision.

    The technology is certainly there, and has been for some time. Do a little traffic study on how the traffic flows, and you would notice that Akamai, I-Beam and others are doing wonders to help large backbones NOT have to transit a ton of traffic.

    Look at some of the newer access control systems like Nortel's Shasta 5000 (32k firewalls, all at broadband speed!) Or Lucent's Springtide box. These have been SHIPPING all this year (and in some cases even the middle of last year)

    Look at what is SHIPPING now for Core IP switching technologies: Every 'next-gen' terrabit switch/router is offering 16 X OC-192 (Thats 160 GIGS) speeds accross multiple optical connections (obviously designed for use with DWDM to cut fiber costs)

    Next Gen Optical gear is pushing toward several dozen OC-192s per STRAND!

    Williams,Enron,Level 3, and Qwest are ALL laying 96 strand fiber trunks (in some cases 3 or 4 of them) in the ground as fast as the trenchers can get out there.

    Do the math. All it takes is for these companies to have a little bit of vision.

    of Course, I notice we missed the HUGE downside to more bandwidth. Something I have been moaning about for the last 2 year I call 'Protocol Bloat' If you think it sounds like code bloat, you are RIGHT, just as more Drive Space and Memory have become available (causing code to loose efficiency), so too will haveing a glut of bandwidth cause the applications and protocols used on that system to become foolishly (and perhaps wrecklessly) unwieldly.

    I can see 5 and 6 Meg 'Jave Applets' just to view a certain sites content... IP 'tunneled' to the point of insanity for the sake of 'copy protection'

  • Re:Disagree. (Score:4)

    by mbyte ( 65875 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:35AM (#790587) Homepage

    Never ever underestimate the demand for porn ;)
    Samba Information HQ

  • What about Akamai? (Score:5)

    by phutureboy ( 70690 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:57AM (#790592)

    What we need is smarter protocols that distribute the content closer to the edge of the network. The commercial Akamai service [akamai.com] does this by placing content caching servers at several thousand ISPs. These caching servers hold frequently-requested images, video clips, and other large files from major content providers. When Joe ISP user downloads a video clip it comes from his ISP's Akamai server instead of going out onto the Internet, crossing peering points, etc.

    Worthy of note is that Helix Code [helixcode.com] is an Akamai customer. So, when you install Helix GNOME, it's not coming from some arbitrary mirror site, but automagically from the closest upstream Akamai server.

    Akamai is awesome, but it would be nice to have an open-source, open-network way to implement this at the ISP level. Does anyone know of any such effort underway already?



    --
  • (Moderators: this is _not_ meant to be a flame or troll, just my personal experience.)

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but having a 100Mbit link merely means that you *can* get that kind of bandwidth - not that you *will*. What's to keep the routers from just dividing the available bandwidth evenly among all users?

    It depends on which company you get your service from. I use the local cable companies @Home service. I pay 30USD/month (would be 40 if I didn't have CATV) for 3Mbit down, 256Kbit up (with compression it usually reaches in the 10Mbit/800Kbit range). A friend of mine pays 100USD/month for DSL from the local telco (line and ISP). His service is rated at 1500Kbit down, 750Kbit up. He's never seen downloads above 400kbit, and uploads above 300kbit for more than a few seconds. (I know, I know, where both HBW's).
    Anyway, my point is that if everyone has 100Mbit connections, the ISP's might give you some bandwidth (like the cable company), rather than screw you (like the telco).

    Mark Duell
  • FYI, he lives 6540 feet (or so says the telco) from the CO.

    Mark Duell
  • As for what happens in the meantime, you can see this already. I'm sitting on a 10Mbit network connected to an OC-3. Sometimes I get 500kbps+, but usually I get closer to DSL speed - 100kpbs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but having a 100Mbit link merely means that you *can* get that kind of bandwidth - not that you *will*. What's to keep the routers from just dividing the available bandwidth evenly among all users?

    Yes, I think you're absolutely correct. In fact, this is what's been happening all along. Every so often an idea comes along that will increase bandwidth to the home and then the "sky is falling" people jump up and talk about how it will bring the Internet to it's knees (like broadband and dsl were supposed to, or before that the ability of Joe user to put binary attachments in his e-mail.) I remember there was some kind of "bandwidth conservation" group back in the early-mid nineties that used to worry about this stuff.

    Anyway, the argument that a 100MB connection between any two points on the Internet will bring the whole thing down as silly. In fact I'm connected by a 100Mb connection right now--the cablemodem on the other side of the firewall is kind of a bottleneck, but what's the difference if the bottleneck is here in my apartment, or at the ISP? It think it's probably wise to start rolling out fibre to the home now, because at some point we certainly will make use of it even if right now it's overkill for most people.

    The argument about joe user flooding a major NAP with 100Mbs is pretty silly I think. It's not as if everyone is getting a dedicated 100Mb connection to a major network access point. Your traffic will have to pass through your ISP just as it does today and you'll still have all kinds of bandwidth limitations in between.

    I think that a 100Mb fiber connection would benefit me most in the short term as local VPN between my friends and I, but in the long term it will boil down to the fact that the throughput will already be there when the NAPs and the rest of the net are ready.

    numb
  • The trend is towards mobility. Things that bring greater bandwidth to mobile users will tend to win. Things that just put more bandwidth into your home entertainment center are of marginal value once you can get reasonable video on your mobile system. The geometric compression standards are squeezing movies to fit within very small data pipes (relatively speaking) at the same time that microcells are dramatically increasing the effective bandwidth available to mobile users.

    Optical backbones belong in space [geocities.com] anyway.

    Fiber to the curb? Who needs it?

  • it takes around 600ms for a round-trip ping to a satellite, at the speed of light

    You're thinking geostationary orbit which is 22,000 miles over the equator. I'm thinking less than 1,000 miles (low to medium earth orbit) which has round trip times of around 10ms.

    This is where the Teledesic system (that I referenced in the linked article) would orbit.

    Here is what the Teledesic site [teledesic.com] has to say:

    User Equipment
    The Teledesic Network's low orbit eliminates the long signal delays normally experienced in satellite communications and enables the use of small, low-power user equipment to send and receive data. The fixed user equipment will mount on a rooftop and connect inside to a computer network or PC.

    Cost
    End-user rates will be set by service providers, but Teledesic expects rates to be comparable to those of future urban wireline options for broadband service.

  • True, somewhat. I see others 'jump' into that market: Free NetBSD/i386 Firewall [dubbele.com]

  • Nothing Special about this problem ... (Score:5)

    by The Code Hog ( 79645 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:21AM (#790606)
    "The ratio is out of whack. If the Big Scary Internet Business Dot Com has X Bandwidth, and the Home User has X / 2 Bandwidth (not X / 500) as it should be), there is a BIG problem."

    Er, why? Yes it will snarl up current network topology for a bit, but it will get worked out. Evolutionarily speaking, things often are available on the net before the infrastructure is ready for them, and then technology backfills the new need.

    Remember when all those AOLers hit the newsgroups? The sky was falling for news culture? Servers would never handle the bandwidth? It settled itself out.

    But a bigger problem is that if you start thinking about how to "manage" broadband access this way, you are throwing away potential new uses for the net. Joe User deserves as much bandwidth as he can afford, and he deserves to use it in any (nonmalicious) way he wants. Peer-to-peer, website hosting, Unreal, Internet radio station broadcasting, whatever.

    This is the problem the AtHome folks are running into -- they spent all that money on caching servers for web content and everyone unconfigures (is that a word?) the proxies immediately.

    And the idea that Big Scary Dot Com Company X should have more bandwidth than me is lotek scarcity thinking. We are rapidly moving toward bandwidth as a commodity. I mean a REAL commodity, where 100mbit access is a given for 5 bucks a month. All those students coming out of college these days sure think it should be and one or more of them will work to make it happen.

    Don't be afraid of the posibilities. Make it possible for us to explore them!

  • Akamai is awesome, but it would be nice to have an open-source, open-network way to implement this at the ISP level. Does anyone know of any such effort underway already?

    Yes. [sourceforge.net]

  • Well I have a few things to say on this before I go reading others comments. First I'll tell you all I'm still on a 56k modem and have no potential broadband access where I live (about 20 miles out from a large city, with ~3000 other people in thsi town).

    Ok, People are not going to fill a 100 Mbit dedicated line. As is all thsi would do is let you download something and then try to figure out what to do next. It doens't matter if your surfing the net, looking for music on napster, etc. all those applications simply use as much bandwith as the other side can send and then it's over and you go to figure out what next to download (net surfing btw is downloading). You would constantly have gaps unless you were doing somehting malicous (like DoS attacks) or massive pinging, so the use of the full 100 Mbits would be low (you'll spend more time finding the data then downloading the data the faster your conenction gets).

    Second well I'd love to have that nice FTTH coming into my house or any other broadband option (DSL, Cable, T1+, etc.). I dont't think it woudl actually change my web habits much though... Other than wandering what else I can find after everything would load in seconds not minutes...

    Well 'nuff said.

  • The more important question is . . (Score:4)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:39AM (#790612)
    Re:"The ratio is out of whack. If the Big Scary Internet Business Dot Com has X Bandwidth, and the Home User has X / 2 Bandwidth (not X / 500) as it should be), there is a BIG problem."

    Why sell 100M/sec for ~$20 a month into the home when you can sell it for ~$200 a month to a business.

    You're leaving money on the table, and that's a bad business model. If you consider that Arpanet had ~56k truck lines (costing thousands) to connect computers in the late 70s and 80s, and today businesses are giving away 56k conectivity for "free", things move on.

    Processor power and bandwidth make incrimental increaces in the marketplace, and have for 3 decades now, and I don't forsee a "leapfrogging" technology that makes it worth the investment. Remember, it's not just the speed of the fibre, it's the router/load ballance/server that has to keep up as well. By definition, internetoworking means "we're all in this together" so what good does paying through the nose for 100x jump in bandwidth if nothing else it's connected too can keep up.

    The past 30+ years of computing has shown [isoc.org] that Bandwidth and proccessor power are incrimental, and any jump in either has a limited life, before it's obsolete.

  • Of course the existing infrastructure can't handle the projected load created by ubiquitous broadband access. You don't build roads for 10 ton trucks when all you have are ox-carts (ok the Romans did, but that's different ...).

    Will there be growing pains? Almost certainly. Can you unilaterally restrict the growth for the convienience of the existing entities? You will be able to do so to a certain extent, but it will most likely grow past your barriers along paths that you don't block.

    The ratio is out of whack. If the Big Scary Internet Business Dot Com has X Bandwidth, and the Home User has X / 2 Bandwidth (not X / 500) as it should be), there is a BIG problem.

    If you are the Scary Dot Com that sees this shockwave of high demand headed your way, then it seems you have several choices:

    1) Bail out now. Sell your business for what you can get out of it. Sit on the beach laughing at the fools who bought your swamped and dying business.

    2) Upgrade your business's infrastructure to handle the increased load. Restructure your business plan so that you can make even more money off of the increased demand.

    3) Keep a weather eye on what is developing and how fast. Make contingency plans. Set aside some assets so that you can compensate fast if there is a need to increase your capacity. Don't assume that your, or anyone elses assessment that "wonder tech X" will come online when/where/how/ you think it will.

    Since we obviously are going to have serious broadband dispersion in the near future, what must be done, legally, technologically, and otherwise in preparation to support such a network?"

    Legally? Nothing, unless you mean that you are going to need legal help with your new contracts and business arrangements.

    Technologically? Good question. See my points 1, 2, & 3 above.

    Otherwise? Keep informed. Watch your market. Talk to your customers. Talk to your associates. Call your congresscritter. Pray. Do whatever floats your boat and you think helps you prepare for the coming flood.

    IV

  • There's no better way to find out than to find out (Score:4)

    by xant ( 99438 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @11:34AM (#790624) Homepage
    Hand-waving about the crisis the Internet will face when all these AOL users get fat pipes is irrelevant. The fact is, the average home user WILL get fat bandwidth, and we should give it to them as soon as possible to find out what the impact will be. We can't predict the impact of all new economic or technological changes without some hard data as to what they actually do.

    So I say, roll out that fiber, and let the chips fall where they may. If somehow everyone had this tech tomorrow, the 'net might bog down in the short term, but at least we'd have some real world testing and know what the problem areas were. Then we'd pay to fix them, and everything would be smooth again. That's the way technology rollouts work. Release, test, release, test, release . . .

    Sure, it's irresponsible to use your customers to do QA (which is what would happen if we rolled it out tomorrow), but it wouldn't be the end of the world, and it's not going to happen tomorrow. It's going to happen gradually, and gradually, technology will rise to meet the demand.

  • All the problems listed can be overcome.
    • Denial of service attacks
      Between the new ID packet every 20000 packets, and source IP filtering at the entry router, we'll be able to tell where it's coming from, and probably get the provider to turn that connection off. Of course, it's going to be some security-free Microsoft OS client that's been captured by a script kiddie, but maybe class action suits against Microsoft... A practical approach might be to have a scheme in place by which a complaint about a node cuts their uplink bandwidth to 100Kb/s, sends them a message telling why, and bills the complainer for bogus complaints.
    • Backbone overload
      I have to admit, as one of the original workers on Internet congestion in the early '80s, I never expected the backbone to be able to carry as much as it does now with as little congestion control as it has. But as it turns out, there's so much fibre in the ground now that long-haul capacity probably won't be a problem. Much of that fibre, after all, can be upgraded to faster tranceivers. Switch capacity will be more of a problem. I suspect most users will get 100Mb/s only when receiving multicasts.
    • It's TV
      The real issue is that this replaces cable TV, which is going to drive the cable and broadcast industries nuts. It may even kill broadcast HTDV before HDTV really gets going. The existing broadcast/cable industry is going to want to keep users from receiving from any streaming source anywhere. Then again, it's not clear which side AOL/Time Warner or AT&T/Viacom will be on. Expect huge political battles.

  • I already get various "check out this kewl movie clip" e-mails from my ADSL and Cable-modem friends, who don't seem to grasp the idea that the top I get over my phone line is 33kbps on a happy day. What's going to happen when they get 100Mbps? Oh, the humanity!

  • Some ISPs (cough [aol.com]) with policy routing to the caching HTTP proxies have such bad routing that news sites like Slashdot [slashdot.org] have day-old headlines.
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • Never underestimate the bandwidth of a Federal Express truck carrying DVD-ROM discs. Sure, it's 24-hour latency (next day delivery), but it's a heck of a lot more bandwidth than you get.
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]
  • They won't suck that much more bandwidth, because they won't know HOW TO.

    Pooh. You underestimate how good we are at making it easy for them to waste bandwidth. They'll all be videoconferencing and filesharing movies in no time.

  • So what if they use more bandwidth? The bottleneck in the system moves, and we have to continue to upgrade the backbones.

    On the other hand, the state of security is deplorable, and crypto is employed only by the very few. Life can get a lot worse if every PC is an attack platform with a very zippy connection.

    Forget the silly "make 'em earn their bandwidth" attitude. Cheap out-of-the-box firewalls, which are easy (or at least easier) to configure, and IPSec are needed.

  • You might be able to configure a router. Can you remove someone's spleen without killing them? Can you operate construction equipment safely?

    I can configure a router, and operate construction equipment safely. I'm not sure about the spleen, but I'd be willing to try if it'd speed up my connection. :-)

    Let's see... got my safety razor... bottle of scotch... roll of gauze...

  • but should the privledge of 100mbit Internet connectivity be given to someone who hasn't 'earned' the privilege of having that type of influence on a public network?

    How does one earn the privilege? Once earned, can they then lose it?

    I have been using computers back when 64k (yes, k) was considered lots of ram. Does that earn me the privilege? What about being able to spell 'C'?

    The problem with high speed home access is that it would allow people to be sloppy with their sites. Just the way that having gb size hard drives and 64mb ram as a 'standard' allowed software developers to become lazy and sloppy, 100mb line speed would allow people to have fat websites just because they have fast home access.

  • Ask 733+d0+ (Score:5)

    by Bitter Cup O Joe ( 146008 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:47AM (#790663)
    "but should the privledge of 100mbit Internet connectivity be given to someone who hasn't 'earned' the privilege of having that type of influence on a public network? "

    What a pile of shit. Tell me, oh barkode, what you have done to "earn" broadband access. For that matter, what criteria would you use to determine that? Beyond that, who gets to decide criteria for that?

    I'll tell you. NO ONE. You don't get to. I don't get to. The government or the corporations might get to, but god help us if they do.

    To put it another way, have you earned your right to vote? How bout your right to a trial? What about making a living wage?

    I am so goddamned sick of this "aren't geeks great, we're so much better than everyone else" bullshit that gets bandied about on slashdot and other net forums. Just because you can program or set up a router or administer a server doesn't mean that you've "earned" the right to have broadband. The fact that you are alive, and that it is a technological feasability, and that it is an economic one = it should be possible for anyone to utilize it.

    Let's put it another way. Have you earned the use of electricity generated by a power station? Did you have anything to do with any of the technological innovations that make it possible to run a modern power grid? No? But I'd bet you say that it is still your right to have access to it, as long as you're willing to pay for the electricity. Same thing with broadband. I'm not saying that everyone should be given broadband for free (although that would be pretty cool) but it should be available, if it is technologically feasible.

    Which brings us back to the original point. One of the questions that you asked was whether it would be technologically feasible to give everyone broadband. The answer is "probably not." However, when it is, I suggest you step the fuck out of the way and let anyone who wants it have it. You are no more 733+ than anyone else. You might be able to configure a router. Can you remove someone's spleen without killing them? Can you operate construction equipment safely? No? Then shut the hell up about "earning" broadband. Let's see how far you get without doctors or construction workers, even those that don't know thing one about how their computers work.

  • The internet was originally designed to be peer to peer but large corporations have pretty much forced it into a starlike formation where end users have tiny little pipes and upstream there are vast backbones.

    The problem with giving end users 100mbit connections is that large corporations would need terabit ones and they just plain dont exist (not over any long distance).

    Also think how chunky a server you'd need to serve out DVD quality video to a few hundred users.

    However the peer-to-peer model decentralises file distribution which is exactly what's needed.

    However in an attempt to block this you 100mbit connection will probably still have a 128kbit upstream (since that's all anyone needs).

    Anyway web surfing will not be that fast down a 100mbit line since the protocol is inherantly latent. I've surfed the web from a machine on a 100mbit connection to the UK's academic network and it's still no faster than my 512kbit cable modem.

    However you haven't traded mp3s until you've shifted an album in under a minute to someone on the otherside of the country ;)
  • This is liking asking the government whether we should be allowed to have sugar.

    Once again, drive choice down to the consumer and let the market decide - and stop once and for all this disturbingly elitist trend of "deciding" for us what we do and do not want or need.

  • This of course is the resounding chorus of any closed technical community - the false belief that their acumen somehow translates into an ability to dictate.

    Of course, the obvious reply is that realistic approaches to security will never get the investment capital needed until broadband is marketed to the general public.

    Slashdot is clinging to the false notion that technology can or should be controlled by an elite.

  • the Home User has X / 2 Bandwidth (not X / 500) as it should be), there is a BIG problem.

    As it "should be?" Hm. Seems the only people who are losing here are the big time sites (your Amazons of the world, if you will). I honestly have a hard time feeling sorry for them. We seem to have gotten ourselves in a position where Joe User views the internet as a broadcast/receive medium, like TV or radio, when the real strength of the internet is that has the potential to be a more broadcast/broadcast medium like CB radio. Give everyone massive bandwidth and the big broadcasters get sunk. Who replaces them? The smaller, more disperesed broadcasters... the users themselves. The result is greater diversity online, greater narrowcasting and less content-dictation by select broadcasters. A gentleman's anarchy, if you will.

    And I like that idea.

  • Gnutella (Score:5)

    by LaNMaN2000 ( 173615 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @08:28AM (#790694) Homepage
    This is NBC reporting yet another Internet slowdown that is affecting e-businesses around the world; here is regional correspondant John Doe.

    Doe: It seems that over 100,000 people with 1Mbps or above Internet connections are connected to GnutellaNET at this time. The sheer volume of packets being routed across the public Internet has saturated the American backbone and is preventing web surfers from being able to visit their favorite web sites. Over $1billion is lost revenue is expected by the time that those *&%*& log off. The NASDAQ has finally crossed the 1000 limit as shareholders are flocking to their brokers to sell off any remaining stock that they hold in e-businesses. This is the third Internet slowdown in as many days that has resulted from widespread use of the Gnutella file-sharing software and it could easily happen again. Governors of all fifty states have enacted a state of emergency and are asking that users conserve Internet bandwidth until the Internet can be expanded to accept more users. Gnutella users will be fined $100 for each unauthorized use of the software during this crisis. More news later as NBC continues its 24-hour a day crisis watch. Back to NBC New York...
  • Finally some sense in this silly thread. Of course this is not a technical issue -- it's economic. If Joe User sees a benefit in getting his TV, Music, Internet etc. through a single pipe (and hey, it's coming, soon -- just consider the guys over at :Cue:Cat (TM) planning on integrating TV ads with a killer consumer database) the backbone Will Be Upgraded. In our nerdly fasion, we've forgotten that none of this is free -- someone's paying for the net as a whole, and companies are very quickly coming to rely on it as a critical part of their business model -- so the system has a strong impetus to fix the technical probs. And security? well, that'll probably have to melt down before it gets fixed, but that's fixable, too. And there is no particular reason that it has to be super-complex to understand. I wouldn't dream of connecting my house to the power grid by myself, and there's a pretty well established infrastructure that allows this to happen very easily and safely.

  • Steeper requirements on car ownership (Score:3)

    by skoda ( 211470 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @11:28AM (#790716) Homepage
    By reasoning like this, we should limit car ownership to those who truly appreciate automobiles, roads, and understand what driving is really about. You must also be able to assemble your car from parts to possess one.

    Perhaps we should also require people to 'earn' their first home by building it themselves...
    -----
    D. Fischer

  • One potential problem is telephone access (Score:3)

    by Vassily Overveight ( 211619 ) on Sunday September 10, 2000 @10:49AM (#790717)
    One concern I have with integrating all of these services is that power failures will be more than just an annoyance. Right now, the telephone central offices have giant batteries that keep landline phone service running even during a power outage. If we start running everything thru optical fibers (or cable tv for that matter), I'm concerned that a power outage will mean that we're totally cut off from emergency services. Maybe not even a power outage: if these services are as unreliable as my cable tv, that ain't so good. Not being able to dial 911 when your neighbors are looting your house, or your garage is on fire might be more than a tad inconvenient ...
  • Gee, first we get "Are computers too easy to use" and now we get a discussion on whether people have "earned" the right to broadband.

    Compare this to "A computer on every desk and in every home" (the old Microsoft motto) or "A computer for the rest of us" (The old Macintosh motto) and you start understanding why Microsoft and Apple have been successful at changing the world and why *ix systems basically been irrelevant outside of niche markets and the most ivory tower variety of academia.

    Much as this sounds like flamebait, it really isn't meant to be. It is a problem that Linux will have to solve it it doesn't end up being the Modula2 of operating systems.

  • We college students have had high bandwidth (well beyond cable modem speed) for the better part of a decade. And, of course, we're a group that adults seem to regard as just a bunch of irresponsible drinkers and party animals. Do you see us DoSing people left and right? No.
  • Here's a company that is bringing Fiber to the Curb in Longmont, CO. Its a small 35,000 city by Denver. Here's the press release from Longmont Power and Communications explaining its development phase.

    This is a great example that big cities aren't the only ones getting FTTC.

    LPC/Adesta Communications Partnership [longmont.co.us]

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