You can get 100Mbit service to your house in the Tokyo area from either usen or ntt for as little as $73 a month. why don't you just move there for three months and try it... There's nothing really magical about fiber to the home other than the fact that we're (the US) letting largish multi-year grants to reachers to study the implications of deploying technology that has no particular technological impediments, only the capital investment one. joelja On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 Jeff.Hodges@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > alternative (non-spam) topic(s)... > > First, WSJ article overview of 100x100 project (goal: 100M homes in US > w/100mbps Net bandwidth). > > Second, Frankston musing about abstract, un-mapped (my guess at terminology) > endpoint naming. > > JeffH > > ------- Forwarded Messages > > Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 19:07:22 -0500 > To: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > From: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx> > Subject: [IP] Growth of the Internet May Take Nothing > Short of a Revolution > > Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 07:26:19 -0800 > From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > > Portals > From the Wall Street Journal -- > > Growth of the Internet May Take Nothing Short of a Revolution > by Lee Gomes > > A new and crucial chapter in the history of the Internet began last week. > Expect all sorts of evolution vs. revolution battles before the chapter is > finally written. > > Starting Tuesday, researchers from four big universities and other > research outfits gathered on the Carnegie-Mellon campus in Pittsburgh for > the initial planning session of the "100 by 100" consortium. With a $7.5 > million grant from the National Science Foundation, the group is spending > the coming few years thinking about how to improve the Internet so that > 100 million U.S. homes can have everyday speeds of 100 megabytes a second. > > That's more than 100 times as fast as most high-speed home connections > today. Files would fly across the Web almost as quickly as if they were > taken off your PC's disk drive. Imagine real-time, HDTV video links > between grandparents and grandkids. > > This being the Internet, in all of its free-wheeling, global splendor, the > 100 by 100 consortium isn't the only group thinking about the Net's > future. Darpa, the Pentagon agency that created the Internet in the 1970s, > is also sponsoring next-generation research under a group headed by MIT's > David Clark. The two groups' work -- there are others -- is seen as > complementary. > > Most people think that improving network speeds is a simple matter of > installing faster pipes. But Prof. Hui Zhang, the Carnegie Mellon > computer-science professor who heads the consortium, says even with > so-called fat pipes everywhere, today's Internet might not "scale up." > > The Internet, he explains, can't continue to evolve with the same basic > design set down a generation ago. "The Internet has been a huge success," > he says. "But the chances are that we are setting ourselves up for a great > failure." > > Some of the reasons for this concern are obvious to even the most casual > Web user, such as today's chronic problems with spam, hackers and the > rest. > > But Prof. Zhang thinks the vastly bigger obstacle to the Brave New Web > involves something more subtle: the growing complexity of the network. > Much of this is unseen to average users; it's deep in the software > standard used to transmit messages -- known as IP, or Internet protocol. > > The professor explains the problem: The routers that serve as the Web's > traffic-control devices are so complex that only a few companies can build > them. What's more, keeping a big network running is getting harder and > more expensive -- "a black art," he calls it. > > Dealing with these issues means putting a number of once-solved technical > issues back on the table. That's where the evolution vs. revolution > debates come in. For example, should the Internet be "connectioned" or > "connectionless?" Right now, it's the latter. All communications are > tossed into the same big pipe, with routers making sure things get where > they ought to. > > But one school of thought says the future Internet needs to have something > of the "connected" flavor of the old-fashioned telephone network, in which > a direct link is established between you and the person you're talking to. > > In the world of data-communications types, things don't get any more > contentious than this. > > As far as pipes, Prof. Zhang thinks that because of the 1998-2000 telecom > bubble, there are enough fiber-optic lines buried in the U.S. to handle > all of the backbone, "long haul" traffic of even the fastest Internet. > > However, connecting up homes -- the "final mile" problem -- remains tricky > and expensive, though new ways of using wireless communications, including > reallocating some or all of the radio spectrum, could help. > > Prof. Zhang acknowledges he stands on contested terrain when he says the > Internet can't continue to simply make incremental progress and expect to > reach the goals of the 100 by 100 program. The computer industry is full > of technologies, such as Intel's microprocessors, that were once written > off as dead ends, but which proved resilient under relentless commercial > pressure. > > What's more, in this evolution vs. revolution debate, the revolutionists > have another challenge. Networking companies, which weren't around when > the initial decisions about the Net were made, might oppose any technical > changes, no matter how well-deserved, that threaten their market > positions. > > Prof. Zhang said that as revolutions go, his would be fairly staid. Most > of the changes he'd want to make to the Net would be built on much of > today's system. The biggest change would involve new equipment, like > switches and routers -- though Prof. Zhang notes they would probably be > changing under any circumstances. > > Prof. Zhang is keenly aware of the PR tricks involved in getting people to > move to a new technology. The current high-speed Ethernet system used by > office-computer networks has little in common with the much slower > Ethernet designed decades ago. It keeps the same name largely for > marketing reasons, to give people a sense of continuity and easy > migration. > > Similarly, "whatever kind of gadgets we are going to be making in 10 > years," he says, "we will still call them 'routers.' " > > Send your comments to lee.gomes@xxxxxxx > > Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net> > Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com> > > - ------------------------------------- > > Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ > > ------- Message 2 > > Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 09:11:47 -0500 > To: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > From: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx> > Subject: [IP] more on Growth of the Internet May Take > Nothing Short of a Revolution > > > Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 22:35:50 -0500 > From: Bob Frankston <Bob2-19@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Subject: RE: [IP] Growth of the Internet May Take Nothing Short of a > Revolution > To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Cc: "David P. Reed Ph. D." <dpreed@xxxxxxxx>, > 'Dewayne Hendricks' <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxx> > > [Dave -- I'm sending this note with some hesitancy because I feel I should > provide more detail and have a specific proposal but given the WSJ story it > seems appropriate to respond with an overview of what it really means to > rethink the Internet -- it's far more about being dynamic than speed or > other technical demos.] > > Revolt? More like just create the kind of Internet we need out of the pieces > lying around. After all, it is just a prototype. > > I've been thinking a lot about these issues and have decided that my > "dotDNS" (removing the semantics from the DNS) and IPV6 are not enough. A > few years ago David Reed and I talked about rethinking the Internet now that > we know how well it works. I put it to the side because I thought it would > better to take incremental approaches first. > > But the incremental approaches failed to address the fundamental issues. In > speaking to Paul Vixie and others it became apparent that even if I got what > I wanted the routing problem was going to be a limiting factor. In speaking > to Dewayne, it also became apparent that radios are a forcing issue for the > not-very-dynamic Internet - once we aren't dealing with spectrum management > then radios can simply come into existence and disappear in less time that > it takes to petition for an IP address. > > I'm working on a detailed proposal but the basic idea is very simple -- > going back to basic end-to-end model. Start by having the concept of end > point but now that the idea has proven itself we don't need to associate it > with a physical computer. We can keep the concept abstract. We can also get > past tying the end points to any particular model of routing. In fact we can > have abstract relationships that don't require routing. This concept is > already evident in the use of URNs for their uniqueness without associating > them with an actual device. > > The End Point Identifier (EPI) can be a very long random number that is > self-chosen, un-guessable and usable as crypto key. > > Routing is just another service and not a layer. Unlike the classic IP > address the EPI is fundamentally stable. The routing infrastructure doesn't > have to track them -- it just needs to deliver packets to a nearby way > station which is what it already does but only a special case -- the > gateway. An end point can be a conversation that uses a particular computer > as a way station for routing. The conversation can move to another machine > without disruption because it is defined by the EPIs and not the computer of > the moment. The host computer isn't an issue, NATs are not an issue and a > particular provider's routing addresses are not an issue. > > Since the EPIs are all first class addresses and decentralized there is no > need for the DNS to provide stable handles nor ICANN et al to dispense > identifiers. > > Crypto is necessary in order to avoid dependency upon the benevolence of > every way station along the route. WEP and all that are also nonissue. > > Obviously I'm only touching upon the concepts here and will be writing about > this in more detail as well as working with others to drill down on the > design details. Even if people don't accept my contention that it is very > doable the very idea of getting past all of those issues should be > interesting if not exciting. > > I realize that this short explanation will probably confuse a lot of people > but that's the risk of giving a short synopsis of ideas whose simplicity is > based on underlying principles that take time to absorb. In reading the WSJ > article I'm amused by the idea that we should resurrect the concept of > circuits -- people are confused anyway. > > The real power of this approach comes from becoming fundamentally and > intrinsically decentralized. It can be implemented by those who choose to > without asking permission. The current Internet provides an initial set of > routing options so there is no need to build a new physical Internet just > for the new protocols. > > Sometimes it's easier to repave than keep patching. It is far simpler to > just assume stable names and use whatever routing is available than > requiring even more complex routing. It is infinitely simpler than dealing > with the ICANN debacle or hoping the DNS works or hoping your operating > system does V6 at all let alone with encryption. > > - ------------------------------------- > > Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ > > ------- End of Forwarded Messages > > > > > > -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joel Jaeggli Unix Consulting joelja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx GPG Key Fingerprint: 5C6E 0104 BAF0 40B0 5BD3 C38B F000 35AB B67F 56B2