Re: links on the blink (fwd)

[Dave Mills <D.Mills () cs ucl ac uk>]

Mike,

Devious would it be for me to monkey in this debate; however, I'm sure
HWB will pick up on these points. Ten percent loss is most definitely
not within the envelope of acceptable service. The protocol models I
have participated in developing and evaluating perform best at loss rates
not exceeding one percent on average. My access is now from London,
where the transatlantic loss rates are more like 30 percent. I would
recommend a sentence to any advocate/employee/consultant making a claim
such as yours to live with these rates for any length of time.

Second, you suggest patience and that the problems should go away in
ten years. Excuse me, I heard (and even said myself as NSF advisor and
researcher) the identical words ten years ago. From my standpoint, things
were approaching nominally good service five years agoa, but today things
are degrading to the bad old days. I must conclude that the cycle over
the next ten years is most likely to repeat. The Internet may get lots
bigger and more ubiquitous, but I bet the discussion we are having now
will be replayed verbatim then.

Dave