mf@ircam.ircam.fr (Michel Fingerhut) (08/30/90)
While trying to find whether we (in France, Europe) could reach a site in Germany (Europe), I got the following route from traceroute: 1 ircam-gw (129.102.0.1) 0 ms 0 ms 0 ms 2 fnet-gw.inria.fr (192.44.64.26) 370 ms 550 ms 480 ms 3 sophia-gw.inria.fr (192.5.60.250) 540 ms 350 ms 290 ms 4 cisco.atlantic.fr (192.33.170.1) 1430 ms 1160 ms 490 ms 5 wormhole.Princeton.EDU (128.112.128.114) 680 ms 710 ms 410 ms 6 ford-gateway.jvnc.net (130.94.0.66) 480 ms 530 ms * 7 nss.jvnc.net (192.12.211.1) 910 ms 640 ms 650 ms 8 Pittsburgh.PA.NSS.NSF.NET (129.140.69.8) 400 ms 500 ms * 9 Ithaca.NY.NSS.NSF.NET (129.140.74.5) 630 ms 720 ms 760 ms 10 lan.cornell.site.psi.net (192.35.82.1) 790 ms 900 ms 930 ms 11 cornell.syr.pop.psi.net (128.145.30.1) 1100 ms 530 ms * 12 albpop.syr.pop.psi.net (128.145.20.2) 740 ms 760 ms 590 ms 13 albpop.nyc2.pop.psi.net (128.145.80.1) 780 ms 920 ms 830 ms 14 nyc2.nyc1.pop.psi.net (128.145.42.2) 700 ms 500 ms 580 ms 15 * nyc_P.lan.nyc1.pop.psi.net (128.145.213.1) 1410 ms 1090 ms 16 nyc1.cuny.pop.psi.net (128.145.14.1) 790 ms 590 ms 910 ms 17 128.145.254.5 (128.145.254.5) 920 ms 740 ms 710 ms 18 iracs1.ira.uka.de (192.54.104.49) 1310 ms 1140 ms 1190 ms I.e.: Paris -> South France -> NJ -> PE -> Ithaca (upst. NY--hi, alma matter!) -> Syracuse (upst. NY) -> NYC, NY -> ? -> Deutschland Why this contorted route? Is it cost-effective?
wnp@iiasa.AT (wolf paul) (08/31/90)
In article <1990Aug30.091435.1982@ircam.ircam.fr> mf@ircam.ircam.fr (Michel Fingerhut) writes: )While trying to find whether we (in France, Europe) could reach a site )in Germany (Europe), I got the following route from traceroute: ) )I.e.: Paris -> South France -> NJ -> PE -> Ithaca (upst. NY)-> ) Syracuse (upst. NY) -> NYC, NY -> ? -> Deutschland ) >Why this contorted route? Is it cost-effective? Well, I guess it has to do with the cost of leased lines used for internet connections. Since the bulk of internet activity takes place in Europe, most European countries have more direct links to sites in the US than they have to sites in other European countries. Since these leased lines are not really charged by volume but rather have a fixed monthly charge regardless of traffic, it probably does not affect the cost a whole lot. The Austrian branch of EUnet will shortly be connected to the Internet by a leased line from tuvie to mcsun; our organization may also get a leased line to tuvie, thus any internet connections from here to France will run via Holland. Mcsun is connected to the U.S.; unless there is a direct connection from mcsun to some French site you talk to directly, a connection from here to you would also run via the U.S. -- Wolf N. Paul, IIASA, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa.at!wnp INTERNET: wnp%iiasa.at@uunet.uu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNET * * * * Kurt Waldheim for President (of Mars, of course!) * * * *
mf@ircam.ircam.fr (Michel Fingerhut) (08/31/90)
Wolf Paul writes: > Since these leased lines are not really charged by volume but rather > have a fixed monthly charge regardless of traffic, it probably does not > affect the cost a whole lot. Well, it is not true insofar as the end user (which I am). As it appears, the French backbone will charge us Internet mail by volume. It has to do, apparently, with the cost of some line whose cost is fixed, but which they intend to share "equally well" among users -- ie the more you use it the more you pay for it. He adds: > The Austrian branch of EUnet will shortly be connected to the Internet > by a leased line from tuvie to mcsun [in Holland] Too bad. Although there is a line from France to Northern Yurop, there is no connection for academic sites from France to there. There is no rerouting through anywhere else, either. So this means that THERE IS NO INTERNET CONNECTION between any sites connected to mcsun and France. Mail goes around, I hope, but since I did not get to send any yet who knows. I suppose that when the various backbones sort their differences, we'll have to pay so as to get to Northern Y. I hope *they* will have to pay to get to us, but I suspect there is more interest in the connection from us out than the converse. So we loose.. Unless we give up on Northern Y. altogether and look as always in the US for software. So much for CEE, connectedness and other grandiose ideas.
eric@sunic.sunet.se (Eric Thomas SUNET) (09/01/90)
I don't want to sound mean, but this isn't an EEC problem, this is a french problem. France is basically 5 years behind most other "rich" european countries in terms of networking. There is a serious lack of TCP/IP connectivity as you have mentioned. There is also a serious lack of decent gateways between UUCP, the internet, BITNET, etc. Just yesterday I received a message from some french UUCP site, through a gateway at ENS Lyon. The 'Return-Path:' field contained just the login name of the poster on the UUCP machine, and the 'From:' field contained some UUCP routing information and no host name. Needless to say it was impossible to reply to this message, apart from the fact that RFC822 mailers don't know what to do with UUCP routing the syntax of the field was simply invalid. I complained, but I doubt anything will happen, meanwhile french users "in the know" make use of the CERN gateway, because "it works", and french politicians are happy that the particular site they are in charge of is getting more influence and that they have managed to get some prestigious position in RARE Working Group so-and-so, and who cares about the rest? :-) Eric PS: Sweden is not part of the EEC, and I am not precisely enthusiastic about the way the EEC spends its networking money, but that is another story...
piet@cwi.nl (Piet Beertema) (09/01/90)
>>Why this contorted route? Is it cost-effective? > >Well, I guess it has to do with the cost of leased lines used >for internet connections. It has nothing to do with costs, politics or such; it's just a small technical problem (a gateway not announcing a route) that can be solved quickly. -- Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam (piet@cwi.nl)