[67] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: competition [NON-answer to the question]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (stev@ftp.com)
Wed Oct 31 13:19:12 1990
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 13:08:01 -0500
To: Roy Smith <roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu>
From: stev@ftp.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, kwe@buitb.bu.edu, schoff@psi.com
Why is it that every single discussion on this list ends up being
Another round of the Kent vs. Marty slug-fest? Not that it's not fun to
listen to, but for all the bickering, nobody ever answered my question.
I'll put it forth one more time.
yea, i have gotten into this kind of thing with marty here before, it *does*
get old fast, doesnt it?
Let's assume I'm connected to NEARNet and get pissed at them and
want to connect to PSINet (not the same pair I used in my original query,
but that doesn't matter). What sort of technical issues would be involved
in pulling one plug and plugging in the other, without causing any undue
disruption to my users?
the problem here is that you have a leased line to the POP of your service
provider. to change providers, you need to:
1) get a new leased line. this will cost the new install charges.
2) get the router for the new service. this will also cost, since *all*
providers seem to require owning the routers at your end of the line.
3) setup the routing. this will cause you to be fed from two sources. you
should have a routing wizard present. this may cause you to be a low cost
path between these two providers. this is a bad idea. (we were worried about
this at the 89 interop, when we had connections to both BARRNET and MERIT.
we had to set up firewalls to avoid this potential problem. isnt dynamic
routing wonderful?)
4) well, isnt this wonderful? OK, now, you disconnect the one you dont want.
give them back the equipment you bought for them. disconnect their line.
basically, it is an expensive proposition. but, why not maintain both?
by the way, do many of PSI/ALTERNET's customers have BOTH commercial and
non-commercial connections?
