Re: Question the other way round:

>> 
>> But if you are building a datacenter (AWS) or an access network or a
>> transport network, you build for the worst case, and expect it to happen
>> rarely.  The systems that depend on the network to actually work for
>> people's needs never want a congested network, and don't actually want the
>> network to operate at its local minimum cost/bit/sec.  They want the
>> network to never be in the way, and the cost they really care about is the
>> cost of getting congested for the wrong reasons.

I've been a the ITU jamboree in Bangkok this week - there is another question,
when your country is hit by an earthquake and an tsunami - offered loads for telecoms
systems go to 50x to 60x capacity. (http://www.itu.int/tlc/WORLD2013/forum/entries/session.1299.pdf)

Those PhD corner cases are sounding more interesting now...

Neil