On Wed, 25 Mar 1998, Bill Sepmeier wrote:
<snip>
> Unfortunately, in the real-world of satellite communications, one can be
> assured of one thing: your path will degrade, or be degraded, to below
> "fiber quality" more often than you would expect. No matter which form
of
> FEC you're running, if the noise floor comes up too high, BER goes up
too
> much for the system to cope with, and if the application systems can't
> determine thios has happened you are in trouble.
<snip>
Absolutely - of course this very subject has come up before :o)
Noticeable BERs happen more often than we'd like to admit. The same
is true for wireless/mobile systems (satellite based or not), KA band
isn't going to make the situation better - especially when it is moist.
Ideally, one would like to be able to distinguish periods of cruddy
links from instances of network congestion. This *is* do-able, but
in the short term that's irrelevant. Changing everyone's TCP isn't
feasible over a period of less than years - though the same is true
for deploying *any* TCP enhancement.
So, providers spoof because of errors, asymmetry and delay; This is
generally good for users and therefore good for providers. No argument
there - but this is a band-aid not a general solution. When (OK, if)
users decide that end-to-end security (IPSEC) is desirable, spoofing
then becomes difficult if not impossible. Complex systems propped up
by spoofing become very unattractive. This might mean that users will
find they are prevented from deploying end-to-end security - that is bad.
Spoofing won't go away soon, but institutionalizing it doesn't make
sense. Spoofing is a reaction to deficiencies - adddress the problems
and the need to spoof goes away.
Regards,
Eric
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