[e2e] Is a non-TCP solution dead?

[David P. Reed]

At 03:51 PM 3/31/2003 -0500, Injong Rhee wrote:
>Is there enough commonality between wireless technologies to know what
>we are designing for?  And if so, what are the timescales we're
>talking about?

Wireless technologies that try to simulate wired technologies are the 
current case.

These will persist for some number of years, more than I would like, 
because the designers of such systems come from backgrounds that talk about 
stuff like "Links", etc.   I.e. they operate with a set of abstractions 
that blind them to alternatives.

My hypothesis is that there is a lot of commonality in such systems, 
because the designers are simulating a virtual device class with common 
characteristics, and that congestion will take the form of queue backups at 
these pretend "links" (which are about as real as the channels in a wired 
2B+D ISDN connection - i.e. fabricated by a multiplexing convention out of 
a single physical medium).

However, if you want to discuss the space of potential RF communications 
networks, you have to stop thinking about "links".   Start with the 
Slepian-Wolf theorem, and go on into multiuser information theory, add a 
dash of QED, throw in some control theory, and you might start to get some 
insight into what "congestion" might mean in the long term of wireless systems.

Wireless means there are "no wires".  Not even "virtual wires".