* Reply to message in MY_MAIL
Hiya Mike,
On 01-11-97, whilst lying in the gutter of the information super highway, I 
heard Mike Bilow whispering to Neil Croft about optical fiber networks,
 MB>> But no one needs gigabit Ethernet to the desktop.
 MB> Since a number of people seem intrigued by my remark, let me take this
 MB> a step further.  I would contend that, although people may someday
 MB> want gigabit BANDWIDTH to the desktop, it will not use Ethernet.
Fair comment.
 MB> Ethernet is a lousy protocol, and it falls apart at high speeds.  It
No argument with that here.
 NC>> per hubbed segment and the 3174s on 16meg T/R with a then
 MB> Considering your reference to 3174 boxes, I would have to question the
 MB> wisdom of your current upgrade plans.  I certainly hope that IBM has
Note that the 3174s are staying on T/R. In the good old days we were in the 
fortunate position of having as many IP addresses as we liked so we routed 
everything and used routers to convert between T/R and Ethernet. When we 
merged with our new corporate network following outsourcing (Just before I 
joined the company), we had to go for a switched lan due to a smaller IP 
range. We bought a Xylan translational switch and I wouldn't recommend one to 
my worst enemy. It's been nothing but grief.
 MB> improved their Ethernet capability on the 3174, because I was
 MB> personally involved with a mess in 1995 which lasted about four
You've told me this before and it is precisely for that reason that the 3174s 
will stay on their own ring and be routed into the switched Ethernet network 
'cos we know routers will translate T/R to Ethernet properly.
 MB> with Bilow's First Law of Mainframes: "All economy is false economy."
And that probably goes for networks as well. =o)
  /| /        neil.croft@pillarbox.coracle.com
 / |/eil =o)        2:250/410 @ fidonet
  http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/~ca5cru/fido/pbox.html
---
---------------