[11983] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
why would NSF consider may 93 questions on commercial use of vbns as non substantive?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Thu Apr 28 19:53:32 1994
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 20:42:57 GMT
To: com-priv@psi.com
An article from the May 1994 COOK Report
OFFEROR'S JUNE 1993 QUESTIONS ON VBNS COMMERCIAL USE NOT ANSWERED BY NSF
ALSO - NSF RESPONSES TO FOIAS SHOW NO COST SHARING DATA, NO SUPPORT FOR WOLFF'S
ASSERTION ON COMMERCIAL USE AUTHORITY, & NO DATA FOR AUDITS OF ANS COMPLIANCE
WITH PRIOR COMMERCIAL USE REQUIREMENTS
Unwarranted
Commercial Use Give Away Could Torpedo vBNS
We believe that the National Science Foundation is now caught between the
proverbial rock and the hard place, thanks to its unwarranted insistence on
granting MCI commercial use of the vBNS. It appears to us that the NSF has
decided to allow MCI commercial resale of the vBNS (155 mega bit per second
backbone) without adequate justification. For under FOIA, the Foundation now
admits that the justification that Steve Wolff gave to the com-priv mail list on
12/29/93 turned out to have no legal support from anywhere else within the
foundation. (See April 94 COOK Report, p. 11)
NSF Non Responsive to Offeror's Questions
A major problem with the commercial use sweetener is lack of oversight
capability by NSF. A representative of a regional network recently asked us:
"What is to prevent entities that buy commercial use of the vBNS from being able
to use these channels to talk to each other rather than to the supercomputer
centers?" Under such conditions it is easy to imagine commercial sales to
companies that really want to talk to each other or to the universities that NSF
will be connecting, rather than the supercomputer centers.
Based on the past lack of audit or enforcement imposed on MCI/IBM/ANS for
commercial use of the previous backbone, is there any reason to anticipate that
any of the conditions imposed this time by NSF will be enforced by the
foundation in its relationship with what turns out to be the same set of earlier
partners on the new vBNS?
Earlier this year, we requested by FOIA details of NSF audits of MERIT and ANS -
audits which would provide public assurance that Merit and ANS are complying
with the requirements of Sept. 10 1990 and May 24 1991. The NSF has responded
that it has no such documents. The more cynical among us probably find
themselves tempted to ask: If NSF has done nothing to verify compliance with
the last sweetheart deal, why should we expect it to do so now? We also asked
for evidence of what cost sharing MCI had promised in return for this new round
of benefits. The FOIA response three weeks ago was "no documents responsive to
your request have been found."
Under these circumstances the use of public money to set up MCI in a commercial
ATM business that MCI has not yet chosen to use its own profits to do for itself
is offensive. It is especially so when the government is essentially paying the
start up costs for MCI to begin to offer the same commercial services already
available from MCI's rival Sprint. Sprint of course has filed a protest of the
Foundation's actions with GAO. And Congressman Conyers is leveling questions at
NSF and ordering it to answer by the close of business today.
NSF Refuses to Answer
Questions on Commercial Use
Some of the roots of these developments extend back to May of 1993, when, in
writing, we asked the NSF to clarify what its commercial use and cost sharing
policies for the vBNS would be. So did Ameritech, Advantis, Bellcore, and NCAR.
The NSF choose to ignore these critical questions. It provided no answers. Why?
NSF knew this would be controversial. Why then was its intent to grant MCI
commercial use so critical to its game plan? Why would MCI and its
sub-contractor ANS once more seem to want to be rewarded for what it bid with
commercial use? This is supposed to be a small market - why the insistence on
the part of all parties on commercial use? And why Steve's heavy emphasis on it
with Ellen Messmer?
If Sprint wins its protest we believe it will be on the grounds of NSF's
unwarranted grant of commercial use to MCI.-for whom $50 million over five years
apparently wasn't enough compensation. If MCI is really serious about the
research involved, why the insistence on the extra commercial use sweetener?
The Unanswered
Commercial Use
Questions
Bellcore: "in many places in the solicitation, the vBNS is described as
supporting 'meritorious high bandwidth network applications.' The implication
from these statements could be that the vBNS will only be used in research
applications requiring experimental high bandwidth networking capabilities.
However, in the background section the solicitation states that 'any traffic
which is in support of research and education will be permitted on the vBNS.'
This quote could imply that it would be acceptable for all the research and
education traffic on the current NSFnet to flow ov
