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From: LAWS@rsre.mod.UK (John Laws, on UK.MOD.RSRE)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Internet Uselessness
Message-ID: <12.JUL.1987.21:53:25.LAWS@RSRE>
Date: Mon, 13-Jul-87 00:53:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: RSRE.12.JUL.1987.21:53:25.LAWS
Posted: Mon Jul 13 00:53:00 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jul-87 05:12:35 EDT
References: <8707090344.aa02151@SEM.BRL.ARPA>
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Doug,
 
I also have suffered (not quietly) for the last 10 months with the
terrible state of the Internet. I know some people in DARPA/BBN/DCA
but seemingly not the ones who "can make it happen" - (no offence
intended to those I know). More than the Internet getting a black eye
consider the following.
 
The Internet uses TCP/IP. There are elements of the Internet (Arpanet,
Milnet) that are under-resourced for the traffic - the performance can
be so bad that my remote host timeouts on me whem I'm trying to login.
TCP/IP is pushed by many members of DOD as the right protocol to be
used for networks in a military environment. Yes, they are going to
transition to ISO OSI - same protocols almost, TP4 and IP (via NBS).
 
Now my  vision of a military Internet is that it starts off in
peacetime with JUST enough resource for peacetime traffic (budget
problems on the Defence Vote we'll plug it next year etc (I think
you call it Get Well Later in the US)). Then the action starts to
warm up a little (the Gulf - Iraq/Iran) and the Internet falls over
the knee of the curve.
 
In part this is a consequence of some very stupid implementations of
TCP/IP, some elements of the protocol which if implemented in
a straightforward way cause congestion once it has occured, and
seemingly a complete failure to develop some other concepts (access
control sensitive to traffic volume, precedence and priority) to the
same degree. While the PTT X25 solution does potentially have its
problems in a hostile environment (note - X25 is more an interface than
an end-to-end protocol and the spec does not forbid self-healing nets
being built - it just needs the market to pay for it) its performance
is generally to a high standard. For good reason, revenue depends on
connection time AND traffic volume.
 
Maybe the answer is to fund the Internet a different way - the PTT
way.
 
John