Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson
From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Whither chargeback policies?
Message-ID: <794@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 88 16:14:01 GMT
References: <SRA.12391999638.BABYL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu.UUCP (Russ Nelson)
Organization: Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY
Lines: 35

In article <SRA.12391999638.BABYL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU> SRA@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Rob Austein) writes, and I edit:
...
>2) Provide some negative feedback (that's a technical term, not a
>   normative statement) so that users will make "efficient" use of
>   the available network resources.
...
>I submit that, at the moment, the two most critical resources on the
...
>  Perhaps some of the income can be used to increase the
>numbers of trunks and core gateways until they can adaquately handle
>the load.

Another possibility: Charge users heavily for the use of the
bottlenecks (whatever they may be at the time).  Use the resultant
income to FIX the bottlenecks.  Theoretically (and in a perfect world :-)
this will result in a network in which the load is spread evenly and
there are no bottlenecks.

Implications:
  o Short term bottlenecks due to down equipment should not be charged for,
    unless they recur, at which point they become long term bottlenecks.
  o The cost model is apparent to anyone who wants to do some pinging.  Of
    course, they'll pay for their curiosity.
  o A site could easily run up a big bill unless the accounting is done in
    a timely manner.  Without timely negative feedback, you can get into
    oscillations.
  o This still doesn't address who pays for which packets, just the amount
    charged for each packet.
  o Maybe a nominal fee for each packet to cover general costs?

    
-- 
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