If you want a really inexpensive hotel, food that is very good, and
an environment in which you are perfectly safe because everyone
around you has guns and none of them are pointed at you, I have a
suggestion for a meeting spot. Take a look at
ftp://ftpeng.cisco.com/fred/march-ietf-meeting/proposal.html
This details a trip I took to visit a university and several smaller
schools last September, with a view to supporting the deployment of
an NRN in the country and laying a fiber plant throughout the
university. It details the city I traversed entering the region
(coming from Europe, where I had other business), and then left
through on my return home.
There were a few problems with the location. Electric power, for
example, is unpredictable, and large hotels non-existent. Meat is
readily available, but refrigeration isn't, so meat makes its way to
market under its own power and must be purchased daily. Communication
from the university was via a NATO communications network called the
Silk Road. Now, the Silk Road network works, but on the Internet
connection from the hotel I at one point experienced a two minute
period in which ping RTTs ramped up from their normal 630 ms to 24-25
seconds (yes, you read that right), held at that for two minutes, and
then returned to normal. In three years there will be a fiber plant
around the country, so says the Ministry of Communications, but the
laying that fiber is hampered by the fact that they have to clear
land mines before they can trench.
I intended this note as a reductio ad absurdum. But on second
thought, it might actually be good for us to visit the location. Take
a gander at
http://www.skyimagelab.com/earatnitlar.html
My observation is that the places on earth that are not well lit with
city lights - many of which I have been to, as have others among us -
are not generally well "lit" with fiber either. I wonder whether
having a meeting in a place that is not connected by a red carpet
throughout the Western Europe/North America/AsiaPac/Australia fiber
corridor would change our perspective on the requirement for routing
to not simply develop A route but to develop a GOOD route, for the
development of services where bandwidth comes at a premium, and for
consideration of the number of RTTs it takes to accomplish something
in an application.
I spoke a week ago with Franck Martin, from Fiji. If you're looking
for "places", Fiji would be a wonderful. He complained that while
many GBPS of fiber traveled within a few miles of his home, but due
to the cost of the landing site he was limited to tens of kilobits.
If you're looking for OC-3 to the hotel...
My point is that it is not about the price of the hotel, nor is it
about taking the Internet gospel to those who haven't been able to
participate in its development, as if they would as a result have the
capability to meaningfully participate in our efforts. It's not about
interesting places in which to have many fine lunches and dinners.
It's about having productive meetings in an atmosphere conducive to
them that is reasonably convenient for 1200-or-so people to travel to
for a week while maintain daily connectivity with home, family, and
their daily workplace.
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