Internet Info 1997 December/Internet_Info_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1997.iso/ietf/94dec/peering-minutes-94dec.txt

Text File | 1995-02-28 | 9KB | 212 lines

High Speed 34 Megabit Atlantic Peering BOF (PEERING)

Reported by Howard Davies/DANTE



Introduction and Background


The BOF was led by Howard Davies.  Peak attendance was about 25 people.
Howard explained that the origin of the meeting was an e-mail message
sent about two weeks before to the US members of the CCIRN suggesting
that the IETF would offer a good opportunity to initiate a discussion on
the organisational and funding issues surrounding the establishment of
high speed (34/45 Mbps) links between Europe and the US.

Background material extracted from the original message was issued to
the attendees and is annexed to these minutes.

The main agenda was then a series of questions (given as headings below)
which were discussed in turn.



What Is The Demand?


User demand is difficult to estimate.  All the existing transatlantic
links are heavily loaded.  When DANTE introduced an additional T1
circuit in November, it was running at 70% load within 24 hours;
demanding applications see poor service levels.  All these factors point
to unsatisfied demand.  Total transatlantic capacity is currently 18
Mbps with the addition of a further 9 Mbps committed during 1995.
Organic growth will quickly take the total requirement into the 34/45
Mbps range.  It is not clear whether the introduction of new
(multi-media) services will generate an additional step increase or
whether they will just add to the existing organic growth.  Trialling
and operation of such services will need committed bandwidth if they are
to be useful and not swamped by general purpose traffic.



What Justification Is Needed For Funding?


The US agencies have stressed the need for services to be seen to
support mission objectives; quality of service is therefore an important
issue.  Funding can only be provided for things that are of direct and
visible benefit to particular programmes.  The individual requirements
of each funding agency need to be clearly understood when formulating
proposals for new or enhanced facilities.



34 or 45 Mbps?

There appear to be no technical problems in using either 34 Mbps
(European standard) or 45 Mbps (North American standard) circuits for
connecting the two continents.  The choice will therefore be determined
by cost/price considerations.



Cost Sharing Procedures (Via Service Provision?)

No-one expressed objections to the principle of purchasing services (and
even shared services) as a way of optimising use of available resources
as long as certain important conditions were met; namely that the
service should be clearly specified, that service levels should be
guaranteed, and that there was confirmation that the service had been
delivered.  Given the management limitations inherent in IP, it is
difficult (if not impossible) to meet all these conditions in an open,
shared IP network service.

On the European side, the reluctance of the European Commission to fund
infrastructure provision might be turned to advantage by expressing all
funding proposals in terms of project support.


Scope For Collaboration With NSPs?

Although there may in principle be some scope for getting favourable
treatment from the NSPs, for example for relatively short periods after
new capacity comes on stream and before it is taken up through normal
commercial sales, the value is limited both in time and to the small
segment of the research community which is prepared to trade stability
for the opportunity of using high bandwidth.  Most members of the
research community, in contrast, give priority to stable services with
good quality of service which can only be provided on reliable
infrastructure.  The NSPs have no interest in providing such
infrastructure services on anything other than normal commercial terms.
There is an NSP view, however, that the research community is asking for
high speed services at zero charge; offers of payment at realistic
levels may provide the starting point for successful negotiations.


US Procurement Rules

The fear appears to be unfounded that US and European procurement rules
may each impose (conflicting) constraints that make it impossible to
achieve a common decision on an interconnection service.  Although both
systems insist on demonstrating that good value for money is being
obtained, usually by competitive tendering, there is enough flexibility
to allow a procurement involving suppliers in both continents to
conclude successfully.



Further Discussion

Following the completion of the main agenda, there was a wide ranging
discussion in which the following points were made (among many others):


   o Europe will be at a disadvantage to the US in relation to reaching
     agreement on equitable cost sharing as long as the only global
     exchange points are in the US.

   o High line prices in Europe continue to be a major distorting factor
     in planning rational network configurations; in particular, the
     cost of distributing traffic within Europe eliminates any advantage
     of using cost effective, high capacity transatlantic links to carry
     traffic to more than one country.

   o Until the line price problem in (b) is resolved, (a) will continue
     to apply.


Conclusion

The principal issues identified were:


   o The importance of quality of service in specifying requirements and
     in formulating proposals to meet them,

   o the need to understand in detail the specific requirements of the
     different funding agencies and the groups they support, and

   o the value of justifying proposals in terms of project/mission
     support on the European side as well as in the US.


It was agreed that these issues should continue to be studied and should
be topics for further discussion at the next IETF and the June 1995
meeting of the CCIRN.


Annex:  Background Information

An update on the current European situation is as follows:


  1. There are a number of activities which have the common aim of
     promoting the establishment of 34 Mbps and higher speed services
     for the research community in Europe.  The main activity is the
     EuroCAIRN Project on which nearly all Central and Western European
     governments are represented.

  2. In July 1994, DANTE was contracted by EuroCAIRN to perform a study
     which included surveys of user requirement, the state of the
     technology in relation to operational services, and likely
     availability of services from the PNOs as well as the development
     of an implementation plan.

  3. As a result of our work on this study, we are now in a position to
     proceed to the implementation of a (geographically) limited service
     in collaboration with a group of national research networks that
     are in a position to go ahead quickly.

  4. The principal obstacle to progress is now the lack of availability
     of 34 Mbps international circuits and services and uncertainty
     about the price levels that the PNOs will have in mind when they do
     deliver them but we are optimistic that, with political support via
     EuroCAIRN and other channels, progress will shortly be made towards
     the start of a service during 1995.

  5. An important conclusion from our survey of European research
     networks for EuroCAIRN was that high speed connectivity to North
     America is seen as a vital component of any pan-European service.
     We therefore need to plan how this connectivity will be provided in
     parallel with our other activities.  For resilience reasons, we see
     the provision of two independent links across the Atlantic as an
     initial minimum.

  6. Our preference, both within Europe and between Europe and North
     America, is to purchase services from commercial providers though
     we accept that in the short term some form of collaboration in
     which we take some responsibility for technical and operational
     networking arrangements within Europe may be necessary.

  7. DANTE is quite prepared to work within the kind of commercial
     framework adopted by NSF. We already have contracts with ANS and
     Sprint for the management of the US ends of our 2xT1 and 1xE1
     transatlantic lines and we are also engaged in discussions with MCI
     on the provision of further T1 capacity.  The discussions include
     an exploration of the possible ways of organising joint funding.

  8. A big advantage of moving away from the concept of funding bodies
     supporting particular lines is that there can be more effective
     routing of traffic between US and European locations independently
     of who is ultimately funding which traffic.


In order to plan high speed connectivity across the Atlantic, we need to
understand how the US funding bodies wish to approach these issues.
Some form of cost sharing will be essential as a fair way of
distributing the actual costs between the parties that benefit.  We also
need to coordinate our approach to the commercial service providers.