ICT Technology

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ICT Technology Issues and Opportunities

• Prof. Rahul Tongia
• School of Computer Science
• CMU
• 17-899 Fall 2003

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Topics

• Trends in Technology
• Time to update the adage Cheaper, Faster, Better
  pick any 2?
• Internet and Telecommunications
• Primer
• How it works (or doesnt)
• Wireless
• 802.11 Introduction only
• Spectrum and other issues

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ICT To Black Box or Not?

• We can cannot cover everything in this one class
  (even semester!). . .
• . . .But the much of the technological issues are
  not that hard despite some people wanting to
  pretend they are.
• With a little effort, the important details can
  be extracted

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Requirements for Successful Service
Will it inter-operate?
Can it be built?
Technology
Standards
Market
Regulation
Will it sell?
Is it allowed?
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Industry Society Penetration Rates
Years to reach 50M users
Source Morgan Stanley
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The Heart of the Matter The Growth of Computers
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Storage Performance
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Optical Fiber Promise Performance
Bell Labs
Gilders Law Optical speeds doubling in 9
months
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Software Challenges in Intelligent Data Processing
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Comparative Statistics
CAIDA (2002)
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What Makes the Internet tick?

• The Internet runs on 3 things
• Boundaries
• Limits of Responsibilities
• Inside the core, is like a black box (The
  Cloud)
• Standards (protocols) for data-centric design
• Expectations of how things should work together
• Layering
• Robustness Principle
• "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative
  in what you send. Jon Postel
• Resiliency distributed architecture
• Limits Monopolies
• NO ONE OWNS THE INTERNET
• Trust
• Addressing schemes and registration
• End-to-end design

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What is the Internet?
a.k.a. Backbone Providers

• The global (public) network built from hundreds
  and thousands of internetworking independent
  networks.
• No single entity runs the Internet
• Operates on standards
• Built on a modified hierarchical structure
• Packet Switching

Tier 1
Tier 2
Users

• There are often more layers
• There can be interconnections other than at a
  backbone

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Structures of the Industry

• Government Dept.
• Government company (PTT)
• PTT Abbreviation for postal, telegraph, and
  telephone (organization). In countries having
  nationalized services, the organization, usually
  a governmental department, which acts as its
  nation's common carrier.
• Regulated Monopoly
• Competition
• IXC Inter Exchange Carriers
• ILECs Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers (Baby
  Bells)
• CLECs Competitive Local Exchange Carriers
• Overbuilders
• Unbundled Network Elements (Open Access)

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Call Completion / Transaction Charges

• Mail postage stamp mechanism
• Telephony cost sharing mechanisms (vary)
• Internet?
• What are the costs?
• Calling sharp falls over time
• Mailing increasing over time
• Faxing not going away anytime soon
• Email
• Is it really free?
• Access
• Upstream TCO (ignoring SPAM, for now!)
• Time

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Peering Internet Call Completion

• Where backbones come together
• Major design issue (relates to cross-connection)
• Public Peering fallout of the public history of
  the Internet
• Network Access Points (NAPs)
• Started with 4, but now there are more
• Usually done by equals
• Give as much traffic as receive
• Private Peering
• Commercial (private)
• International peering is more limited (links are
  much more expensive)

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TCP/IP

• Suite of protocols for networking
• Based on logical address for devices
• Most popular standard worldwide built into most
  OS
• Like most other packet switching, is
• Connectionless
• Statistical (non-deterministic)
• No inherent Quality of Service (QoS)
• Most of IP routing is unicast
• Routers pass packets along towards the
  destination hop-by-hop

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Internet Good for what it was made for

• Best-effort data network
• Scalable
• Resilient
• New trend Everything over IP (XoIP)
• Voice Circuit switched
• Less than half the traffic
• Growth of 25 vs 100 (?) for data
• But, is most of the revenue for carriers
• Suppliers killer app
• For users, email and WWW are the killer apps
  (legal, anyways)
• Internet Telephony is not the same as VoIP
• Latency example
• Berkeley CMU IP-based lectures!

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Applications vs. Networking Parameters
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Internet is built on trust

• Registration (databases) are believed because
  people think they are correct
• Domain Name System
• Handles names for humans vs. binary for machines
• Root names are the last .xxx, e.g., .com, .edu,
  .org, .mil, .ca, .tv
• Just 13 root servers in the world
• Many copies made for practical purposes
• Borders define responsibilities

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Standards and Regulation

• Many bodies, sometimes with overlap
• IETF (within IAB) handles the engineering of the
  network
• W3C handles web standards such as html, xml, etc.
• IEEE handles some standards
• Requests for Comments (RFCs) are how things get
  standardized
• Draft is circulated
• Modified, debated, etc. (many versions often)
• Becomes a standard by vote.
• Companies often try and tilt emerging standards

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Registries and Domain Names

• Numeric address space is coordinated
• Domain Names initially managed by ISI (Jon
  Postel)
• National Science Foundation (NSF) hired
  contractor to administer
• Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) under InterNIC
• NSF stopped paying NSI, allowed NSI to charge for
  .com, .net, .org
• 70 for two years
• NSI becomes enormously profitable

Based on information from Jon Peha and Gary
Kessler
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Domain Names (cont.)

• NSF responsibilities passed to Commerce Dept.
• The US government controlled key element of the
  Internet (!) so
• NSF establishes ICANN (Internet Corporation for
  Assigned Names and Numbers) in 1998
• Has many critics
• Registration became competitive by 1999
• Registry manage database, NSI monopoly
• Registrar consumer interface, competition
• IP address space (numeric) is still from regional
  authorities

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Spectrum

• Frequency affects
• Capacity Bandwidth
• Range
• Interference and Line of Sight Requirements
• Protocols and Technology
• ISM Bands are kept free for Industrial,
  Scientific, and Medical Applications, e.g., 2.4
  GHz

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Special Properties of Spectrum

• Heavily controlled
• Military uses
• Licensed use
• Source of licensing fees
• Is a public good everywhere yet not limitless
• Many forms are appropriate for point to
  multipoint (including broadcast)
• Encoding is key bits per hertz

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Spectrum Issues

• 802.11 Alphabet Soup
• a, b, g, i, etc. Differ in
• Data Rates
• Bands
• Compatibility
• Distance
• Is licensed spectrum better (cleaner, scalable,
  etc.)?
• 3G licenses have gone for thousands of dollars
  per potential subscriber
• Cognitive Radios might be the future

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Hypothetical WiFi Kiosk

• Access Points are now about 100 (only!)
• What else does it take?
• What range does it cover?
• Number of Users
• Band overlaps and congestion
• FCC vs. ETSI regulations on emissions
• Uplinking
• IP address space
• Now What Syndrome need user h/w, s/w, etc.
• Business Plan ?
• Capex is less than half of broadband costs

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ICT Issues

• Policy
• Convergence
• Open Access
• Universal Service / Digital Divide
• Globalization
• Winner Takes All
• Internet
• Is it special (Information Service vs. Telecom
  Service)?
• Jurisdiction
• Taxation

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Issues in the Internet

• Scalability
• Internet is growing at 100-300
• Running out of IP addresses esp. LDCs
• Long term solution IPv6
• 128 bit addresses (millions per square meter)
• Protocols and equipment are straining
• Security
• Distributed Denial of Service example of an
  attack
• Viruses
• Spam
• Privacy
• Quality of Service
• Voice