If it’s Ethernet versus Godzilla, then Godzilla is DOCSIS

Two weeks ago I was at the Computer History Museum to help observe the 40th anniversary of Ethernet. It was literally 40 years to the day since Bob Metcalfe drew his first sketches of what became the world’s dominant OSI Level 2 network technology. It was a fun and festive day that ended, believe it or not, with dancing. But some of the celebration didn’t make sense to me. Or, rather, it seemed to me that important parts of the discussion were missing.

When, for example, did 802.11 WiFi become a part of 802.3 Ethernet? That claim was made over and over during the day and helped power the argument that Ethernet is today a $100 billion business. Yeah, right.

Parts of that argument are true. […]

By |June 17th, 2013|2013, Internet, Technology|11 Comments
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Bufferbloat 2: The Need for Speed

Almost eight months ago in my annual predictions column I made a big deal about Bufferbloat, which was the name Bell Labs researcher Jim Gettys had given to the insidious corruption of Internet service by too many intelligent network devices. Well I’ve been testing one of the first products designed to treat bufferbloat and am here to report that it might work. But like many other public health problems, if we don’t all pay attention and do the right thing, ultimately we’ll all be screwed.

At the risk of pissing-off the pickier network mavens who read this column, Bufferbloat is a conflict between the Internet’s Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and various buffering schemes designed […]

By |July 25th, 2011|2011|62 Comments
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