[1043] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Text of chron-nren
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.e)
Mon Jul 22 20:01:01 1991
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 91 18:59:58 CDT
From: francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Carl Malamud's message of Mon, 22 Jul 91 17:39:25 PST <9107221739.0.UUL1.3#5653@malamud.com>
Reply-To: francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
>It seems that the article by Joe was well balanced and one of
>the few pieces I've seen on the NREN in the general press. If
>we really want to get this thing funded, we're going to need
>lots more articles like this one.
Lots of articles saying things like this?:
> This figure is $2-$3 billion higher than the most often cited
>price tag on the program, but that price does not include planned
>spending by the National Institutes of Health and the military, a
>key sponsor of the technology. Congressional and other sources
>conceded that the intent of the legislation is to increase
>spending to a billion dollars a year, twice the current level.
He's making it sound as if those extra 2-3 G$ were being done
secretly, as if there were something inherently wasteful in the Net.
>The Internet is certainly a form of "anarchic democracy." Even
>Vint Cerf would be the first to admit that there is no central
>control and that the IAB plays at most an advisory role (although
>one a very well respected advisory role).
My apologies. I've heard this phrase a *lot* about the newsnet, and
never before about the Internet.
>As to the age of the Internet, the ARPAnet began in 1968. By
>my reckoning, that makes it over twenty years old. Finally,
Oh, okay. I was just wondering on that one.
>describing "a gigabit is a transmission rate of a billion bits
>per second" may be useful to you, but I would venture a guess
>that most of Joe's readers would not gain much by such a statement.
Maybe he could attempt to teach them a teensy bit, so that they would
benefit from it. The way he phrased it sounded as if an encyclopaedia
were a basic unit of information.
/============================================================================\
| Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.|
| Department of Mathematics |=============================================|
| University of Chicago | Should five percent appear too small, |
| francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | Be thankful I don't take it all. "Taxman" |
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