Re: [NNagain] The FCC 2024 Section 706 Report, GN Docket No. 22-270 is out!

[Jack Haverty <jack@3kitty.org>]

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On 2/26/24 07:06, Dave Taht via Nnagain wrote:
> I wish we could do a live demonstration on
> television

It's been years, but when I talked with non-techie people to help them 
understand the difference between bandwidth and latency I used a 
familiar human-human task to get the ideas across.  E.g., take a group 
of people at the end of a work session, who are trying to reach a 
consensus about where to go for lunch.  When everyone's sitting around a 
table, a quick discussion can happen and a decision reached.   Then make 
them all go to separate offices scattered around the building and 
achieve a similar consensus, communicating only by sending short notes 
to each other carried by volunteer couriers (or perhaps 140-character 
SMS texts).   The difference in "latency" and its effect on the time it 
takes to finish the task becomes clear quickly.

It seems like one could orchestrate a similar demonstration targetted 
toward a non-technical audience -- e.g., members of some government 
committee meeting in a room versus the same meeting with participants 
scattered across the building and interactions performed by staffers 
running around as "the network".   Even if the staffers can convey huge 
stacks of information (high bandwidth), the time it takes for them to 
get from one member to others (latency) quickly becomes the primary 
constraint.

This was also a good way to illustrate to non-techies how web pages 
work, and why it sometimes takes a long time to get the entire page 
loaded.   Go to the library to get the text.   Now go to the art 
department to get the banners.   Now go to the photo archives to get the 
pictures.   Now go to that customer to get the ads you promised to 
show.  .....

Jack Haverty


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