eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) (02/05/89)
In article <27676@bu-cs.BU.EDU> kwe@buit13.bu.edu (Kent England) writes: > > You might want to be careful about committing to the broadband >token bus standard [802.4]. It may not go anywhere in terms of >installed base. if broadband .4 provides the price & performance you need (extending ethernet subnets over many miles at nearly full speed), the installed base of other .4 products won't make much difference! > Ungermann-Bass has dropped support for the broadband token bus >medium. They say it is due to lack of market interest. They will be >supporting MAP on Ethernet and, I suppose, other IEEE media standards. good luck to them. .4 to .3 bridges can enable .4 traffic to traverse ethernets and interoperate with .3 nodes, as well. > U-B pioneered MAP support through INI, a joint venture with GE >that GE bailed out of a while back. U-B knows the MAP market through >INI, so I would take their "advice" seriously and I question whether >broadband token bus will ever reach a critical mass of support. their "advice" might be due to internal factors which are not public knowledge! > Anyway, broadband MAP is looking rather deadend-like. But >perhaps broadband token bus has uses outside of MAP. it surely does have uses outside of MAP... >interested to know what other users think and what other vendors >already support 802.4. Doesn't someone make a .3-.4 bridge already? there are a bunch of .3 to .4 bridges available. the company i work for (Chipcom) happens to make one of them! .4 provides a great medium for extending ethernets to very long distances without paying leased-line costs, and without sacrificing performance (depending on whose bridge one uses)... i'm sure you can all guess which bridge i would recommend.. the Chipcom bridge has performance far greater than any other .3-.4 bridge, though we are not yet shipping one with inband network management. -- Steve Elias (eli@spdcc.com) ((617 239 9406)) (((617 890 6844))) ()