[1108] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
CIX Association, Inc.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Schrader)
Fri Aug 2 11:53:54 1991
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 91 11:50:04 -0400
From: wls@psi.com (William Schrader)
To: com-priv@psi.com
To: com-priv readers
The following announcement is important to discussions on this list.
Bill Schrader
President, PSI
=======================================================================
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Commercial Internet Exchange Association, Inc.
Falls Church, VA. August 2, 1991
The three founding members of the Commercial Internet Exchange, originally
proposed in April 1991, today announced the formation of a formal
cooperative organization to carry on and implement an expanded CIX mission.
The Commercial Internet Exchange Association, Inc. (CIX Association), was
recently incorporated in the State of Delaware, organized under Federal
statutes as a 501.c(6) tax exempt, non-profit trade association. The CIX
founders and all new members are Public Data Internetwork (PDI) Service
Providers cooperating to provide a non-restrictive packet interchange for
tcp/ip and OSI traffic.
The CIX Association will assist its members in the establishment of and
adherence to operational, technical and administrative mechanisms and
standards necessary to ensure fair, open and competitive operations and
communications among member PDI Service Providers. CIX Association
policies are set by its board of directors which are elected by the CIX
membership. The CIX Association will coordinate closely with national and
international networking organizations and standards-making groups which
comprise the Internet.
The purpose of the CIX Association is to broaden the base of national and
international cooperation and coordination among existing and emerging
networking service providers within the industry. This new organization
will provide a neutral forum for decisions to be made as the global
Internet migrates toward commercialization.
Membership Invitation:
The CIX Association founding members are General Atomics of San Diego CA
which operates CERFnet, Performance Systems International, Inc. of Reston
VA which operates PSINet, and UUNET Technologies, Inc. of Falls Church VA
which operates AlterNet. The CIX Association extends an invitation and
encourages all TCP/IP-OSI PDI service providers to join the Association
and participate in the CIX. The Association actively solicits membership
and network connections with all commercial and non-profit US national,
Regional and Mid-level networks, Federal and state government networks,
and international network organizations.
Interested parties should contact:
The CIX Association
3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 590
Falls Church, VA 22042
Tel: +1 703 876 5050
Fax: +1 703 876 5059
info@cix.org
Membership Requirements:
Any service provider can join the CIX Association and have an equal voice
in developing the standards which will prove beneficial for our industry.
At this time, the Association has the following membership requirements:
1. Members agree not to restrict the use of their network based on traffic
type, subject only to applicable laws. This provision removes commercial
constraints imposed by the use of government funding for networking.
2. Members agree not to charge other CIX members for CIX-related matters,
including including charges based on traffic volume, commonly called
"settlement". The CIX Association may modify this "no settlement" policy
(and other policies) as the CIX membership requests.
3. All members must be legally organized to provide TCP/IP or OSI public data
internetworking services to the public in multiple geographic areas.
4. Members must provide the necessary circuit and equipment to connect to one
of the CIX interchange points, currently CIX-West in Santa Clara, CA, USA or
CIX-East in Washington, DC.
5. Members must sign the CIX Agreement, pay the annual membership fee,
and participate in CIX Association technical and administrative committees.
6. Members agree that they neither incur nor present any liability to other
CIX members, or the CIX Association, by submitting data traffic to or
accepting data traffic from the CIX, except as required by law.
Formal agreements are available for PDI service providers meeting the
above criteria to review.
