[1002] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: some dumb questions from the gallery
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter S. Ford)
Mon Jul 15 16:10:32 1991
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 91 14:04:08 MDT
From: peter@goshawk.LANL.GOV (Peter S. Ford)
To: schoff@psi.com, sob@tmc.edu
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, mcostel@kaman.com, nren-discuss@psi.com
Marty,
Are you at least willing to agree that we might need gigabits in support
of "operating MegaInstitutions"? To quote the little blue book:
All capabilities will benefit from, and many will be enabled by,
a program of ***research*** into very high speed technology.
(emphasis mine)
I believe that the NREN as it is being discussed in the political circles
has several concurrent components including, but not limited to,:
1) improve capabilities of existing portion of federally sponsored internet
(both bandwidth, reliability, ease of use, etc.)
2) help broaden deployment of public data networking
3) invest in gigabit network research since it is believed we
will need it for aggregation AND for high speed applications.
Am I on track with this discussion, or am I really missing something? If
we are on track, then perhaps we can start discussing how best we can accomplish
all of this. I have a hard time imagining that this all is best accomplished by
putting ALL NREN monies into the end users hands. This merely pushes the problem
to the identification of THE end-users. I suspect this would get so broad so fast that
we could argue that the 70-90 million bucks gets diluted to less than $100 per end user.
Not much impact can be had from this from my point of view, and I think most
govt people (congress and executive branch) would agree.
I believe this discussion should start focusing on identifying viable targets for
NREN funding which can subsequently gain leverage from the marketplace. My
favorite hit list includes, and is not limited to,:
access to information sources: libraries, databases, etc.
name service / security services for authentication
user services, consulting on application of network technologies
operational standards, the network is a "critical resource" to most that
use it.
making it possible for end institutions (US govt, companies, etc.)
to enforce their own appropriate use restrictions, not the networks.
How to handle success: gigabits, resource reservation, internetworking
instead of watching broadcast TV, etc.
Some of this requires research, some needs seed deployment, some will
just happen. I am interested in what vehicles need to be funded, in what fashion and
by how much.
Cheers,
Peter Ford
MS-B287
Computer Systems Group
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM 87545
+1 505 665 0058
peter@lanl.gov
