From: pell@lysator.liu.se
Subject: IP connections and Germany
Organization: Lysator Computer Society, Sweden
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 09:58:17 GMT

First, excuse my English but my German is too rusty.

I wonder if it might be time to question the future of the Internet
(TCP/IP) in Germany. It's not my purpose to tell anyone how to do
things, but my fear is that not everybody is aware of what's going on.
Maybe it's not too late for those who want IP to do something.

This is a (rough) translation of a mail I sent the other day to the
IP-net coordinators in Sweden, and a reply from one of them (I haven't
secured explicit permission to post, so I withhold the name for the moment).

>> From: pell@lysator.liu.se (P{r Emanuelsson)
>> Subject: routing to germany
>>
>> Hi! Since about one week back, the routing to (certain computers(?) in)
>> Germany has been over the UK, instead of the usual Amsterdam, with severe
>> performance degradation.
>>
>>traceroute to 137.248.1.1 (137.248.1.1), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
>> 1  lysator.liu.se (130.236.254.1)  0 ms  20 ms  0 ms
>> 2  rainier.isy.liu.se (130.236.23.1)  0 ms  0 ms  20 ms
>> 3  isy.liu.se (130.236.20.1)  0 ms  20 ms  20 ms
>> 4  ipliu-gw.liu.se (130.236.1.1)  20 ms  20 ms  0 ms
>> 5  sunet-gw.sunet.se (130.244.9.17)  60 ms  20 ms  0 ms
>> 6  Stockholm-EBS2.nordu.net (192.36.148.20)  20 ms  20 ms  20 ms
>> 7  Stockholm-EBS1.Ebone.NET (192.121.154.17)  40 ms  40 ms  40 ms
>> 8  Stockholm-EBS5.Ebone.NET (192.121.154.34)  100 ms  180 ms  80 ms
>> 9  London-Stockholm.Ebone.NET (192.121.155.17)  200 ms  220 ms  220 ms
>>10  int-gw.ulcc.ac.uk (128.86.1.2)  180 ms  160 ms  100 ms
>>11  188.1.236.124 (188.1.236.124)  2440 ms  1740 ms  2120 ms
>>12  * 188.1.132.108 (188.1.132.108)  9440 ms *
>>13  convex.HRZ.Uni-Marburg.DE (137.248.1.1)  7260 ms *  4280 ms
>>
>> Should it work like this?
>
>It works GREAT, according to German norms. IP doesn't exist; OSI and
>X25 do.
>
>In this case you are a victim of X25.
>
>And, yes, it should work like this according to a decision by Germany (DFN).
>Count on it becoming even worse, since "Europe" is moving to something called
>"IXI production service" instead of setting up a working network, as decided
>by the EC!
>
>Germany, where they call us dealing with IP for "die Banditen", doesn't
>want to be a part of Ebone, but they want to talk (X25) with their buddies
>in England.
>
>There's almost no way into Germany anymore (for public use), except routing
>over the US, but that doesn't help much since the problems are in the
>German "SUNET". [SUNET is the Swedish University network - Pell's comm.]
>
>The only thing we can do anything about is what's called Ebone in your
>tracing, but that seems to work fine.
>
>Ask the people you have contact with in Germany to complain if they want it
>different. I think we have done all we can from here. 

As an aside, the Nordic countries early understood the importance of
networking and has never had any performance problems due to continuous
upgrading when usage so dictates. I think our NORDUnet backbone is
currently 2 Mbit/s, with a line to the US of 768 kbit and 1 (2?) lines to
Amsterdam of 256 kbit, for example. There is a commercial, very successful,
IP provider (SWIPnet) offering different levels of service for small,
medium and large companies. They have forced the Swedish PTT (Televerket)
to offer their own IP service, but they have some ridiculous ideas that you
should encapsulate your IP packets in X25 coffins before transmitting them,
besides being more expensive than SWIPnet. I haven't heard of anyone using
their "service".

A slightly paraphrased quote from The Tao of programming comes to mind:
The only realm where politics rules technical decisions is in the mind of
the unenlightened.

     /Pell
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