[CAnet - news] Implications for an improving Internet

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 [A good column by Scott Bradner. I also highly recommend taking a look at
KC Claffy's slides . Some excerpts -- BSA]

Today's focus:  Implications of an improving Internet
By Scott Bradner

Most of the Internet has been getting better over the past few 
years. In much of the world, the Internet is now good enough for 
all but the most demanding applications.This improvement has been 
in the default "best effort" service and hasn't depended on ISPs 
implementing fancy QoS mechanisms. Paradoxically, some ISPs might 
see this news as a threat to their future financial health.There 
are a number of research groups currently studying Internet 
performance, although it still is not easy to get good 
data, as KC Claffy details in one of her talks ( 
<http://www.caida.org/outreach/presentations/2005/cenic0503/> ).

[..]
These improvements have been in the standard Internet "best 
effort" service. As Vonage ( 
<http://www.nwfusion.com/news/financial/vonage.html> ) and other 
overlay-VoIP services have shown, VoIP "just works" for much of 
the world most of the time. You don't have to pay the carriers 
extra for better service to make VoIP work well enough to be 
very useful. This fact might be a real threat to the financial 
well-being of carriers that plan to make more money by charging 
extra for better quality service - and that includes most of the 
traditional telcos. These carriers will be forced to try to make 
money selling a commodity service, unless more of them 
purposefully try to mess up their networks to mess up VoIP, as 
Vonage has claimed that some already do. These carriers could be 
in for a rough ride.


ARCHIVE LINKS

Gibbs archive:
http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/gibbs.html

Bradner archive: http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/bradner.html
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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.



Bill St. Arnaud
Senior Director Network Projects
CANARIE
[email protected]
+1 613 944-5603

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