The MPLS WG Archive

[Curtis Villamizar <curtis@workhorse.fictitious.org>]

In message <200009271558.IAA08911@aurora.cs.ucla.edu>, Lixia Zhang writes:
> >  ......
> >  ISP's view on QoS
> > 
> > 	I am NOT from ISP.. but I guess they sell services (which
> > 	are made around bandwidth) .. 
> > 
> > 	If everybody has enough bandwidth and is not a commodity..
> 
> at the last IETF, people from several big ISPs told me that bandwidth *is*
> a commodity market now
> Just to pass the info.


Oil is also a commodity.  That doesn't mean its free.

The cost of lighting up fibers and therefore the cost of bandwidth is
still not negligible, even though the cost of a circuit may be an
order of magnitude cheaper than 5 years ago.

Long distance is also a commodity.  Long distance is under $.10/min
but that is still not free.  IP service is a commodity.  It still cost
money to get service and to deliver the service.

For services ranging from raw bandwidth to commodity IP or voice,
there is competition and being able to deliver service at a lower cost
is an advantage.

Better service will cost a little more to deliver and will cost the
end customer a little more.  That is the argument for QoS.  What is
debatable is whether there is a sufficient service differentiator to
demand a higher price and whether the cost of accounting and
administration (all the way down to router configuration) doesn't
exceed the price that this service would bear in the market.  That
point does bring into question the validity of the argument for QoS.
We'll just have to see which way the market goes on this one.

Curtis

ps- We're way off topic!  This is the MPLS list?  Right?