August 2000

June 2000, Volume 5, Number 6 on the cover: Edge Routers -- Replacing the Class 5 Switch? Where is the article?

Since this is an area that we practice in, I would like to see what your "take" is on the issue. I just don't have the time to try and find the article in the magazine. I understand that this "tickler" mentality is used to entice the reader, but finally in my case it just became too much. If it is too much trouble to clearly indicate where the article is if you allude to it on the cover, then it is too much trouble for me to spend the time to find it.

We have nine engineers who as part of their job description are to peruse CTI et nom. That changes today. We will assign only one engineer to peruse the magazine, and summarize for the others by e-mail.

While this will remove the opportunity of an engineer finding something useful for his assigned tasks while perusing the current issue, they will spend less time trying to find information that may or may not be there.

You have a wonderful magazine, but you have gone off course, and just a bit Hollywood in my opinion. If you find your way again, I will be glad to resubscribe.

David A Schwering,
American Communication
& Computation, Inc.

Kevin Mayer replies:

Dear Mr. Schwering,
Thank you for your thoughtful letter. To answer the immediate question, our editorial coverage of edge routers in the June issue begins here. There is my brief editorial, introducing the section, which includes sidebars, a Q&A, and a selection of relevant news announcements.

My apologies if our cover blurbs were misleading. As a trade magazine in a competitive field, Communications Solutions�, like other publications, tries to encourage readers to open up the magazine. One technique is to run cover blurbs that are short, emphatic, and even provocative. We feel that we are competing for attention not only with other publications, but with the multitude of distractions we all experience every day.

My personal taste would be to present material that was more formal and even academic in style. I suspect you would prefer something a little more in that direction yourself.

Perhaps a compromise would be possible. I have in mind a box within the table of contents. This box could carry the heading "On The Cover," repeat the blurbs, and indicate where the items of interest could be found.

I'm reminded of Samuel Johnson's preface to his dictionary. What he said of lexicographers could easily be said of editors:

"It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward.

Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths of Learning and Genius, who press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authour may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompence has been yet granted to very few."

I remain open to suggestions. I am particularly interested in how I might solicit feedback from readers so that I might address concerns before they reach such a point of frustration that a reader, such as yourself, feels he has no alternative but to cancel his subscription.

Sincerely,
Kevin M. Mayer, Editorial Director

The following refers to Tom Keating's CC: column, "I've Got The Bandwidth Blues" from June 2000.

Tom,
Your article could easily be generalized to all cable modem service providers, but I spend a large part of my time trying to make our cable modem access as equitable as possible for each user.

We found, before we took steps to correct the problem, that 5 percent of our users were typically using about 70 percent of our bandwidth. I am convinced that some users download files just because they can, and not because they need them. Some users download as much as four gigs a day!

Using Packeteer's Packetshaper, we were able to determine who was using our bandwidth and, what they were using it for. Napster was the main culprit. In some systems it was using over half of the available upstream and downstream bandwidth. The genius of the Packetshaper is its ability to identify all traffic by packet type and then allowing you to limit the amount of bandwidth used for each type of packet. We found Napster and we conquered it. We found a guy who was sharing his CD-Rom drive over the Internet so people could copy program CDs. An additional benefit is that we can catch and block hackers.

You were right on about Cablevision's bandwidth problems. They were exactly what occurs when 1,000 screaming cable modems run smack into the relatively tiny interface of a T1 line. The help desk technician should have realized immediately that the person they were talking to knew more than they about the process by which a packet traverses a network.

If ever you need an insider's perspective on the cable modem process, please contact me. I would much rather have a happy and fully-educated journalist to read than a victim of poor service. By the way, when you activate your dial account it kills your Ethernet connection. You were operating soley on the dial side.

Good luck,

Charles Mann
Director of Internet Services
James Cable Partners, L.P.

Tom Keating replies:

Thanks for your insight on the cable broadband industry. I'm familiar with Packeteer and its ability to "shape" traffic. I'm hoping my broadband provider starts using it or something equivalent. As for your last comment about my dial-up account killing my Ethernet (broadband) connection, you are partially correct. In my column I mentioned that I used a 56k dial-up connection "bonded" with my broadband connection to reduce packet loss. While it's true that a typical Windows 98 PC defaults to the dial-up connection, my home PC is anything but typical! I have so much software on it that it's easy to forget what I have running. I forgot that I had some really cool software from MidPoint which "bonds" up to eight connections of any type (DSL, 56K, cable) to be teamed together to harness their combined throughput. I highly recommend it. 

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