Re: Distribution CPG Protocol - Some Thoughts

[Stephen Thomas <stephen.thomas@transnexus.com>]

At 02:05 PM 2001-01-08 +0100, Martin May wrote:
>I think we come to the point where it becomes tricky:
>how do we define the "closest" surrogate?
>as long as you are an ISP/access provider you know if you are the closest,
>but how about the cost?
>unfortunately, the "cost" is very important for the choice of
>the appropriate surrogate. you may not want the closest, but
>the cheapest surrogate.

I think Martin's quite right, and it scares me. Having some experience 
trying to deal with monetary cost in a communication protocol (different 
problem domain - telephony), I'm more than a little nervous. Three things 
to consider. (1) Monetary cost is difficult to express uniformly 
(currencies, fluctuating exchange rates, jurisdictional issues [of the 150+ 
government-sanctioned currencies only about 20 are "freely traded"], etc.) 
(2) Dealing with money requires air-tight security (people tend to treat 
errors non-linearly; how upset would you be if your paycheck were short 
$0.50?) (3) Pricing is often non-uniform. (What I charge depends on who's 
buying.)

My advice is to leave monetary cost completely out of the protocol.

Stephen




____________________________________________________________________
Stephen Thomas                                       +1 770 671 1888
TransNexus, Chief Technical Officer    stephen.thomas@transnexus.com