Re: int-serv over e.g. ATM

[Noel Chiappa <[e-mail]>]

    On the other hand, SVCs may cost money. ... If you can often use either a
    shared VC to the router (shared with other traffic from the same router) or
    use a VC to that router rather than a direct VC all the way, you might
    still get the QoS you want and reduce your costs when the router is lightly
    loaded, and get the QoS you want when rejected using a direct VC.

This sounds to me like a pricing anomaly, i.e. an artifact of prices that
don't correspond to the actual resources used. Carrying the packets around
should cost the same in terms of resources consumed, no matter how many layers
of mechanism you use to do it. So, I'm not sure how imporant this case is; it
might go away since the market tends to drive prices toward "real" prices.

About the only reason I can think of where it might be genuinely cheaper is if
you have saved the overhead of state/setup required for a separate VC all
through the net. If this is that big a deal, how come ATM isn't trying to
aggregate VC's? But the "do we have to aggregate flows" is a whole separate
can of worms.

	Noel