Internet Congestion

I posted the second part of my Internet congestion article on High Tech Forum:

This is the second part of an examination of the nature of congestion on packet switched networks such as the Internet. In the first part, Internet Congestion 101, we looked the at an idea expressed on Chris Marsden’s blog regarding the assumption of a “reasonable level of backhaul.” As Chris acknowledges in a comment, the task of pinning down the level of shared capacity (backhaul is shared by its nature) that’s reasonable falls on the regulator rather than the engineer. The reason for this is that the way supply and demand are brought into balance on packet switched networks is dynamic; on a circuit switched network, demand is static per call, so the operator simply has to provision enough shared capacity to supply the number of subscribers that are likely to make calls at the network peak (probably Mother’s Day afternoon in the US.) The consequence of demand exceeding supply is the inability to make calls, and that’s clearly unacceptable.

Read the whole thing, slacker.

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