[LINK] digital black screen and absolute data lines

[Richard Chirgwin]

Revising and qualifying...

Glen Turner wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 08:06 +1000, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>
>   
>> Why the scepticism, Jan? The data service will have been something 
>> boring and non-Internet, like a DDS, Frame Relay or ATM connection - 
>> well, I guess ATM may not be present in Mildura, but DDS and Frame Relay 
>> will be. Both of these have something that Internet services don't get - 
>> service level guarantees in the four-nines class or better.
>>     
>
> Um, I work for an Internet network which has delivered 5 nines
> for about three years now. 
Revision: ordinary consumer and commercial Internet tails aren't offered 
with five-nines SLGs. AARNET has to be described as a special case, 
because it's competently managed!
> Remote surgery happens across that
> network often enough not to be noteworthy anymore. There's nothing
> special about DDS, FR, etc versus IP -- what does make the difference
> is the emphasis and expenditure on robustness. Traditionally
> that emphasis has not been present in Internet engineering,
> but that's certainly not the case in academic networks anymore.
>   
All true. But in the specific case, a doctor speaking from Mildura, I 
would guess that if he's saying "this link won't go down" it's because 
it's not a generic ADSL tail. I would, however, quibble that the 
higher-layer IP network should anyhow be distinguished from the 
low-layer physical connection. Some business customers use DDS links in 
cities as the connection to a critical Internet gateway.
> Anyway, the basic problem with the point-to-point services is
> that they are dedicated. So there comes a point where there isn't
> enough people to share the cost for the speed that you want for
> your application.
>
> So there's a sweet spot in application bandwidth demands for a
> dedicated link. That used to be about 2Mbps, it's now about
> 30Mbps. Anything outside of that sweet spot, you're looking
> at using the Internet, simply because there is no other way
> to afford the service.
>   
As with Internet services, the business private data network prices are 
shifting downwards. There is a very noticeable shift towards Ethernet 
tails in metro areas, and at a higher layer there's a similar shift from 
Frame Relay and ATM networks towards private IP services (eg, Optus 
Private IP, Telstra IP WAN and so on). 
>   
>> Not all data is Internet data (in fact, at least the last time I looked, 
>> the private data services market was still slightly larger than the 
>> broadband market. It's just not as interesting).
>>     
>
> You've got to be careful there. The markup on private data services
> is well over 50%, whereas the markup in Internet services is much,
> much less. So you're not really measuring economic activity when
> comparing the expenditure between the two markets.
>   
Well, the pool of business customers is also much smaller than the total 
pool of Internet customers. There's about 900,000  businesses in 
Australia (that is, businesses with greater than zero employees), 
according to the ABS, versus seven million-ish households. So I wouldn't 
expect similar volumes of service connections - although a comparison of 
penetration would be interesting, if anyone has it!

Cheers,
RC


> Best wishes, Glen
>
>