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From: jas@proteon.com (John A. Shriver)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Is the Internet usable for wide-area interactive conversations?
Message-ID: <9106191453.AA10917@sonny.proteon.com>
Date: 19 Jun 91 14:53:04 GMT
References: <2039.Jun1803.33.1391@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27

You state:

   Keep in mind that an active TCP connection---e.g., a remote login---dies
   the second that the network becomes unreachable. An objective observer
   would have to conclude that, no matter how good the IP service was while
   it was responding, the network was simply unusable for interactive work
   during this period.

TCP connections are not lost when you get a network unreachable!!!
Please see RFC 1122.  That is a bug in the Berkeley (4.2bsd) TCP/IP
implementation, which unfortunately (for its bugginess) has been the
base for more TCP implementations that any other.  Its bugs must not
be taken as gospel.  Please complain to the vendor of your TCP/IP
implementation to fix this bug.

The MIT V6 UNIX TCP/IP written in 1980-81 did not drop TCP connections
on host/net unreachable, although the user telnet was nice enough to
tell you that it was happening.  The SMTP/TCP would just sit there and
keep trying.

Nonetheless, cross-country backbone routes should not be thrashing
like this.  I'm not trying to apologise for the network, but I think
the blame for the problem should be more properly shared between the
network and the host.

There may be some stablitiy problem in our bailing wire inter-AS
routing protocols (EGP & BGP) prompted by some link failure.