From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.cell-relay
Subject: Re: Curious attitude ...
Date: 30 Jul 92 23:37:36 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA

In article <1992Jul30.184556.1@research.ptt.nl>, walvdrk@research.ptt.nl (Kees van der Wal +31 70 332 6295) writes:
> 
> > Wasn't the IETF multicast "interactive"?
> 
> I don't have any idea what IETF is. A group of people looking at a
> presentation
> on a videoscreen is not my understanding of "interactive". 

I saw none of them, but I understand there were world-wide
question-and-answer sessions after the presentations.  There are public
reports of people around the world talking to each other.

> > If you don't have some real time constraints, pictures get objectionably
> > jerky and voice is hard to understand.
> 
> What I meant to say is that if the information (picture, voice) is only going 
> into a single direction (from performer to audience) there's no problem to 
> smooth the variances in the delay. So no jerky pictures or 
> difficult-to-understand voice. For such an application I don't mind a total
> delay of (say) several seconds. 
> 
> If the audience is supposed to talk back ("interaction") I _do_ mind
> about the 
> delay.

There were complaints about excessive delays in talking back in the IETF
experiment.  

 
> ...
> With all respect for data-people in general, for me it's a "small" network.

I understand.

> Doing similar things in a world-wide network might make some difference.

Funny, but that's exactly what the data people have been saying about the
PTT plans for decades.  Just moving what are now a few million computers
from the Internet to The Phone Company is not a good plan.  Just
saying the 1990's equivalent of "use x.25" might turn out to be silly.

There is an indescribable difference between a demo among a dozen
picture phones, even around the world, and a real data network, even of
only a few hundred machines.
 
> > Do you guys think that all of the "multi-media" people are without a
> > clue or a hope?  (I think many lack one or the other, but few lack
> > both.)
> > 
> > I'm trying to politely suggest that you telephony guys should get out
> > more.  See other parts of the world.  Good data networking people
> > generally know they don't know about telephony, but it is strange the
> > obverse does not seem to apply.  (I won't claim in public to be good,
> > but I will claim to not know too much about telephones.)
> 
> This looks (to me) as a flame against "you guys". Did "we" say anything wrong?
> Then "I" apologize. I never suggested (at least I didn't mean to suggest)
> there
> would be no hope for the world without ATM (or "telephony guys" for that
> matter). 

Please don't take that as a "flame".  I really mean that telephone guys
should get out more.  That telephone guys have for the decades I've
known them been amazingly insular.  They are like the people who live
in big, famous cities like New York or Paris.  There is an ironic
provincialism involved--ironic because they find everyone else in the
world hopelessly provincial, despite the fact that the country bumpkins
have heard of the big city while the city slickers don't even know the
country exists.

I figure you are a telephone guy, and I'm glad to see you poking around
this digital corner of the universe.  Please continue, and please take
some snapshots back to the big city.


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.cell-relay