[e2e] Re: crippled Internet

[Jon Crowcroft]

In message <Pine.LNX.4.31.0104181113520.7552-100000 at ockeghem.cisco.com>, stev
e wolff typed:

 >>-=< snip >=-
 >>>(would someone like to start a phone company that allows outgoing
 >>>calls only  -? not much of a business case:-)
 
 >>Symmetry.

- early telephone nets used party lines, and
it was expected that the main use for them would be to replace "low
quality wireless broadcast" for music - note that the assymetric
phone lines got replaced when it became apparent that the business
case was for person-to-person voice calls. i.e. it didn't last long
before the trend was to deploy a meshier network...the IP equiv is
fiber to the home - 
 
more generally...(very speculative)
- there's no really simplex links - there is assymetric
of capacity, but not of actual access, but if some was to try to corner 
the market in the client side ONLY, they would be in a very bad position 
vis-a-vis a takeover from their counterparts who had the high
bandwidth server/content side ONLY - and if they didn't
allow a takeover, it would constitute a cartel. :-)

i guess there's short term market fluctuations (i.e .over a few
years or so) when you can have some mileage in being one side or the
other only in the presence of specialised ISPs, but in the long run,
i dont see how it can hold out...as i say, it seems like a low value,
eventually marginal or even loss business...


perhaps tho the "short term" i am thinking of is 'academic' and in
the Real World (TM) its long enough to get VC and shareholders
Excited (TM)...

silly proposal:
i suppose if we set the MTU on cable modem access nets small enough (e.g. 
1/nth of the ACK size, for n cocurrent users:-) then
the incentives would work out right for inbound v. outbound traffic
simply due to congestion control on the first hop link:-)

 cheers

   jon