From: gih900@sao.aarnet.edu.au
Subject: Re: FASTPAC and AARNET
Organization: AARNet
Date: 15 Sep 92 22:08:50 +1100

> I have heard that aarnet's projected growth is such that they (you?) are
> looking at ways of increasing its capacity.  One possibility is to use
> FASTPAC, but I believe the proposed tariffs make this appear
> unattractive.

The tariffs  are certainly  an issue.   I have gone over  this  in quite  some
detail with the relevant  Telecom  folk some time ago.  The basic outcome  was
that the tariff  regime  only works  when  you have  a set of virtual  private
networks without interconnection  (sharing  across charge domains does not fit
easily  into the Fastpac  regime  - something  which  I'm sure  is a potential
source  of concern  to  any  intending  public  service  provider  looking  as
Fastpac).   Even  in a single  charge  regime  the  tariff  structures  are  a
wonderous  thing with all kinds of distance  and volume  steps  built  in.  (I
would not be at all surprised  to learn that the tariff structure  took longer
to devise than the underlying transmission technology!)

(While I'm musing on this topic I also wonder  about the scaleability  of this
tariff regime.  I'd certainly  admit that its possible to snarf the headers of
all outgoing cells on a 10Mb outgoing  link and rip off all source / dest E164
addresses  (and don't forget that these cells are tiny critters  - 48 bytes of
payload if memory serves me correctly)  and then push all these counts through
a volume / distance  charge generator.   Possible  certainly  but I'm not sure
about what happens under sustained load with heaps of address pairs.  But what
I was really  wondering  was what  they'd  need  to use to snarf  all the cell
headers if the outgoing  pipe was clocked at 34Mb?  140Mb?  622Mb?  (and don't
forget  that  these  are not outlandish  speeds  on the cellular  transmission
world) i.e.  is this chosen tariff direction for data switching  really a sane
approach given the problems in scaling to readily foreseeable offerings in the
next 2 3 years?  And lastly how accurate  would the bill be?  (asking  this on
the basis of having negotiated for days and days over the ISDN bills which use
a pathetically simple tariff structure by comparison!)

On a point-to-point  basis the current offerings  are little different  from a
Megalink circuit in terms of overall performance  (Fastpac-2  would be worse -
Fastpac-10  slightly  better than a 2M ptp link) and the tariff levels  do not
provide any real incentive to migrate to such a service offering.

I'd note that my comments  above  are related  to Telecom's  marketing  of the
technology  - not the technology  itself.   I've  never  been  convinced  that
Telecom has a good understanding  of the emerging characteristics  of the data
communications  market from a LAN perspective, and indeed AARNet itself can be
interpreted as a somewhat eloquent expression of the fact that Telecom has not
to date been able to come out with a market  offering  which really  addresses
comms requirements  in terms of inter-LAN  connectivity  as a public switching
environment  offerring  both VPNs and open switching  access  (but  if someone
wants to debate the issue I'd gladly watch and add in my comments!).

> The purpose of my message here is to present the technical
> possibilities, and at least try and understand what the perceived
> problems with using the FASTPAC service are.  I would also like to have
> the chance to explain what the underlying QPSX technology supporting
> FASTPAC can do, since FASTPAC uses only a restricted set of its full
> functionality (for example, QPSX gear is cell based and already
> supports integrated synchronous and packet switched service).  It is
> also conceivable that QPSX gear could be provided to aarnet as a private
> network.
> 
> I was told that this is the appropriate forum for discussing these kinds
> of issues.  Hope that's the case.

Certainly  I'm  interested  to take  you  up on  your  offer  to  explain  the
underlying  QPSX technology  to this newsgroup (it'd make a welcome break from
kre's initials!).

However of course technology  is not the only factor in a purchase decision in
terms of meeting service requirements.   It would also be interesting to place
this into a context which includes point-to-point leased megabit services, the
potential deployment  of frame relay services and potential deployment  of ATM
switching  services,  and then look at availability  issues, possible  rollout
timeframes,  potential and achievable  uptake levels of these services and the
estimates of commercial viability from a providers' perspective, which in turn
determines  what gets marketed by the carriers and what achieves the necessary
volume of deployment which determines the likely consumer choice in terms of a
stable  and cost effective  comms  platform.

It's got to be stated  that the beauty  of routers  is that they  are free  of
commitment  to any particular  service  offering  - and that allows the client
base a degree of flexibility to purchase carrier offerings which are driven by
parameters  of cost effectiveness  of service  and allows  the client  base to
quickly shift between  service  offerings  to take advantage  of shifts in the
tariffs in various offerings.

From such a perspective  it must be noted  that  Fastpac  has to compete  with
other existing and potential megabit transmissions  offerings  on the basis of
its tariff and percieved reliability  of service.  From the _customer_ side of
the router Fastpac is _invisible_!

(My personal 2c to what could become a interesting thread)

Geoff Huston
From: imb@asstdc.oz.au (michael butler)
Sender: fredmail@asstdc.oz.au