Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!ukma!david From: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Packet level accounting in IP routers? Message-ID: <8921@e.ms.uky.edu> Date: 13 Apr 88 20:29:27 GMT References: <21618@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Reply-To: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences Lines: 36 In article <21618@bu-cs.BU.EDU> kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England) writes: > [flame on] There is absolutely no reason that network access >charges should be packet based. It makes no sense on a local area >network like Ethernet and no sense in a packet internet. Users will >not understand the charges (as well as contract auditors) and you >won't be able to justify them. "Well, let's see your diskless >workstation used 45k NFS packets last month." "What do you mean, all >I did was read netnews!" > > Local area networks do not cost you on a per-packet basis and >you don't need to recover on a per-packet basis. Per packet only >works on (virtual) terminal networks, networks of the past. [flame >off] I can't believe I'm about to argue for the grey suits, but here it is. It costs a certain amount of money to install/maintain an ethernet. Ethernet's have a certain maximum number of packets they can pass over a period of time. That ratio gives you a first guess at the cost per packet. The same holds true for some phone line which is being rented from the phone company which gives you 9600bps or 56k or t1 or whatever. That phone line costs x, you can do at most y through the line, so x/y gives you a cost per packet. The place where it's more obvious is a net that DOES charge per packet, like I understand X.25 nets do. As was pointed out rather eloquently from a gentleman in Australia, a charge per packet gives a different style of protocol than not having the charge. -- <---- David Herron -- The E-Mail guy <---- or: {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <---- <---- I don't have a Blue bone in my body!