[LINK] Great bandwidth, poor latency

[Tom Worthington]

On 26/04/16 13:41, Chris Johnson wrote:

> We should not be distracted into arguments about bandwidth that
> ignore the latency ...

Latency is an issue with geostationary satellites, including NBN's Sky 
Muster. But given the choice between no Internet access and long 
latency, I would take the latter (it is not feasible to run fiber to 
every home in Australia). Some applications will not work with long 
latency, others need changes. What we should not do is take an 
application designed for a low latency link and just expect it to work 
on a high latency one.

> and forget the convenience of access on-demand that dominates human
> behaviours ...

On-demand access is not always convenient and people may not be prepared 
to pay the additional cost, even when it is technically feasible.

> I was reminded of the difference between bandwidth and timely access
> to data by this story on koala genome research ...

Must be a pun there somewhere about koalas and bandwidth. ;-)


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