Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!bu.edu!m2c!seqp4!jdarcy
From: jdarcy@seqp4.ORG (Jeffrey D'Arcy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Subject: Re: IRC Net Bandwidth (was IRC and Security)
Message-ID: <703@seqp4.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 91 16:19:02 GMT
References: <5152:Mar1805:08:4291@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Organization: Sequoia Systems Inc., Marlboro, Mass.
Lines: 11

brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>But it's the packets that cost. A 2-byte packet costs almost as much as
>a 500-byte packet.

Yeah, right.  On an Ethernet, you have a 14-byte Ethernet header, 20-byte
IP header, 20-byte TCP header, a couple of trailers...all told less than
60 bytes, and I can't imagine other data links are that much worse.  That
would seem to make a 500-byte packet about nine times as costly as a 2-byte
packet in terms of transmission time.  Certainly there are per-packet costs
regardless of the packet length, but not enough to make your statement even
nearly true.