[11441] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The whole CIX concept is flawed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (James Waldrop)
Sat Apr 2 23:22:26 1994
To: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
Cc: bilse@eu.net, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 02 Apr 1994 17:10:55 CST."
<m0pnEq7-000Bc3C@mercury.mcs.com>
Date: Sat, 02 Apr 1994 19:01:02 -0500
From: James Waldrop <jlw@cs.columbia.edu>
Karl Denninger wrote:
>> I think you're missing our anonymous friend's point. All of the
>> costs asociated with routing CIX direct connections are presumably
>> paid by the CIX connection fee, *not* the CIX membership fee.
>
>Not true.
>
>Have you priced the following lately?
> Routers (Especially large-frame CISCOs)
> Ports boards for those routers
> T1 CSU/DSUs
> Maintenance on the above
> Salaries (someone has to maintain these things!)
> Office space
> Electricity (NOT a trivial matter)
Actually, yes, I have. I was including all of that in the "connection"
fees. I realize there are setup fees, CSU/DSU lease fees, etc etc.
All of these fees to cover all of these services. Exactly what service
does my $10K CIX membership buy me? Surely I'm not buying *any* hardware
with it, or else the people who use Sprint as a transit but still pay
the CIX fee are subsidizing the people who connect directly.
The one thing I expect my $10K fee *is* buying me is someone's salary.
I don't know Bill Washburn, so please enlighten me to what he does, on
a day to day basis. How much can it have to do with ensuring symmetric
routing?
If Sprint is your transit out to the greater world, *exactly* what is
this $10K buying you? Why is it $10K? Why not $100? Why not $100K?
If it is *specifically* the amount of money that it costs CIX to
convince everyone else that you're a nice guy and they should route you,
then why isn't it variable? I mean, a little BBS that wants to do SLIP
to its 100 or so clients is not going to be imposing an awful burden
to the net, whereas ANS CO+RE is another matter. And there is the
symmetric nature of all this, right?
>Let's say that ANS CO+RE decided to "play fair" and the resellers ponied up
>to the bar. What could happen with, say, $200,000 in additional annual
>income for the CIX? I can think of a couple of things right off the bat:
>
>1) New points of service.
>2) More service.
This sounds to me like the backbone business. Presumably the backbone
business will be paid for by the people using it, not people using
someone else's backbone. Explain to me again what this fee is getting
me? Someone a shiny new T1 that I'm not going to use because it's in
the Midwest?
>What are you going to do if the following happens?
>1) The CIX dies [...]
>2) Sprint, ANS, Alternet and PSI decide to stop selling to small resale
> customers.
>3) Now, as a small ISP you CANNOT get a connection which you can resell
> easily.
>
> Bye-bye small ISP marketplace.
Hello business opportunity. Anytime you have someone willing to buy,
with an artificially inflated market, a space is created that someone
will move to fill. I think CIX is creating that space now, with this
artifical fee that puts IP reselling out of the reach of small bulletin
boards like ECHO (just to pick a name out of a hat, I don't have
anything to do with ECHO).
The why of these small boards *wanting* to resell IP is answered in
another thread that's been on this list lately...
James Waldrop
jlw@cs.columbia.edu
sulam@well.sf.ca.us
