[11284] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Options (was Re: What is an "Internet reseller"?)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dick St.Peters)
Mon Mar 28 10:04:10 1994
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 94 17:06:26 EST
From: stpeters@bird.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
To: karl@mcs.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
>From: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
>> Let me turn the question around on you. Do you have the right to block
>> traffic to your paying customers for any reason other than at their
>> request?
>
>A "right"? If it does not violate any outstanding contractual agreement,
>certainly I have that right.
Well, I worded my question poorly and gave Karl the opportunity to jump
on the wrong meaning and run off the deep end with it. Karl, you
should have been a lawyer: you answer whatever literal interpretation
of a question is most convenient for you instead of searching for and
responding to the intended thrust.
When I said "paying customer" I meant a behaving customer, one paying
his/her bills and not violating any agreements with you. The thrust
of the question is whether you believe you have the right to block
traffic to such a customer because of something having to do with from
where the traffic is coming.
The point I am trying to make here is that communication involves two
parties. In the posting to which I was responding, you persistently
took a viewpoint that you were providing a service to other parties by
letting them communicate with your customers, a service they had no
right to demand. For example, you asked:
----
Do you have a <right> to transit of your packets from some other provider
to an MCSNet customer without a settlement being negotiated and charged?
Do you have a <right> to talk to any person on another network provider's
infrastructure at all?
----
The viewpoint I'm trying to get you to see is that if the traffic is
flowing to and from your network, then that right has been bought and
paid for by your own customers.
You have threatened multiple times in this thread that while someone
may buy service from a non-CIX provider, you are not obligated to
accept their traffic. You are asserting the right to block your own
customers from communication with people you don't approve of.
>For if you believe that, then you have a <right> to buy a connection from
>PSI and sell SLIP accounts, or even dedicated connections. You have a
>"right" to peer your routers with theirs. Try that sometime and see what
>Marty thinks about it. After all, you have a right to full interconnectivity
>on your terms, rather than those you negotiate with PSI, no?
Excellent reasons why you should have realized my question was not what
you were taking it to be ...
>> There are only two possible states: 1) every provider is selling
>> guaranteed connectivity to every Internet customer, or 2) no provider
>> is selling guaranteed connectivity to every Internet customer.
>>
>> If the private sector can only come up with #2, we will wind up with
>> regulated utilities providing #1
>
>Why do you think this?
Because a fully-connected Internet is the only model that will work in
the long term, and we have an existence proof in the telephone system
for a fully-connected communication system.
Having been through that, we're well aware of the many disadvantages
of the regulated utilities model. But it does work. Telephone
companies do not turn down calls because they don't like who's calling.
Mind you, I'm not advocating the utility model. I am predicting that
it will happen if things don't improve.
>As the CIX has <proven>, you do NOT need a regulated utility model, with
I beg to differ about what the CIX has proven. My first encounter with
the CIX was its severing of the Internet last October, an action that
cost the commercial Internet enormously. We will never know just how
much it cost, but it sure made one private-network supplier happy.
However, I think the CIX has shown that the private sector is *capable*
of providing the kind of realiably-connected Internet that business
needs. Whether it actually will do so is still an open question.
If I were to become a commercial provider (still a possibility), I
would probably join the CIX, but having paid up I'd be damn mad if
anybody blocked any traffic to my customers.
--
Dick St.Peters, Gatekeeper, The Pearly Gateway; currently at:
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
