[12244] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Idea for new (?) NSP business model
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Willis Marti)
Wed May 11 05:36:39 1994
From: Willis Marti <willis@cs.tamu.edu>
Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 20:44:45 -0500
To: com-priv@psi.com, francis@avalle.insoft.com
>Suppose I want to put up a host with some service that needs fairly
>high bandwidth (say, a graphics-intensive Web site). I contact
>foo.net, which has a T3, and find that I can't afford to get a T1 to
>my site (e.g., if I'm a long way from POPs, like, say, here ;-), and
>maybe a T1 isn't really good enough for my service anyway. So,
>instead, foo.net offers to let me install my host at their site. I
>get dialup IP over 14.4 from whoever (of course, foo.net would prefer
>it be from them ;-), and can telnet in to maintain the host; or
>perhaps I hang a modem off my host & dial in. Now my host is on the
>Net at T3 speeds, and I can do whatever I want with it, but I don't
>have to pay for a T3 to my site. This isn't just cheapskating on my
>part; the setup is inherently cheaper.
...
>
>Is anybody doing this already? Has anybody though of this already and
>realized some major flaw I'm missing? There would be security issues,
>of course.
Lots of *transport* providers have thought of it -- think how much of an
advantage it gives them if *they* provide the service without paying
extra. Why, suppose the NSF was paying you to run a vBNS or NAP and you
put your service-providing host in the same facility. Now, if someone had
a valuable service, why would the transport provider want to give you room to
do it instead of doing it themselves?
