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From: karn@FALINE.BELLCORE.COM (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  T1 and distant IP networks
Message-ID: <8709141820.AA23401@faline.bellcore.com>
Date: Mon, 14-Sep-87 14:20:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: faline.8709141820.AA23401
Posted: Mon Sep 14 14:20:24 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Sep-87 06:44:21 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 18

Another way to go is to interconnect at the link (Ethernet) layer using
Vitalink Translan III bridges. They support line speeds up to T1. We've
been running a half dozen of them within Bellcore for a year now and
they have been working very nicely. We have five large locations and
about 1000 hosts in our host table. During a typical daytime minute,
several hundred hosts may be active.  At the moment most of our links
are 250 kbps; one is already T1. All links will soon be upgraded to T1
when our DS-3 fibers are installed.

The big advantage of bridging is that you can run any protocol you want
across them; it doesn't have to be IP.  Another is that you can freely
move hosts between cable segments without having to change addresses; in
a large network like ours, the administrative savings are substantial.

The main disadvantage is that broadcasts go everywhere, although with
T1's bandwidth this isn't much of a problem.

Phil