[1225] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: technical details
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ittai Hershman)
Tue Aug 27 15:06:53 1991
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 15:05:46 EDT
From: Ittai Hershman <ittai@shemesh.ans.net>
To: wls@psi.com (William Schrader)
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com, lear@turbo.bio.net
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 27 Aug 91 11:34:04 -0400
An alternative to the approach Ittai outlined earlier is for Regionals
to join the CIX to route their commercial traffic and have their
academic traffic continue to route over the 100% government paid ANS
backbone connection.
Bill Schrader is absolutely correct: mid-levels can join the CIX and
only route RE traffic over the NSFnet, for as long as the NSFnet is
funded by the government and provided they do the routing correctly
(and I'm unsure of how the CIX advises its members to handle the
complicated policy-routing requirements of these dual connections).
However, I would like to point out:
1. ANS offers a way in which mid-levels can leverage their
existing NSFnet-funded attachments to also carry
commercial traffic (and avoid the work of dealing with
the routing issues).
2. ANS is only provider which provides a 45Mbit/sec data
highway for commercial traffic coast-to-coast.
3. As Marty recently pointed out, ANS is allowing the NSF
to build a better, stronger, faster, network than they
could afford. That better, stronger, faster, network
is in-part funded by commercial connections (either
directly via ANS CO+RE, or through the mid-levels).
Finally, I'd like to say that the CIX Association and ANS Mid-level
Agreements offer different (but not necessarily mutually-exclusive)
models of interconnectivity. Peter Ford and the NEG (NREN Engineering
Group) are developing yet another model of interconnectivity called
the NEX.
We at ANS have spent a lot of time working with the NSF funded
mid-levels to develop the model we have proposed. We are not wedded
to that model -- it is but a first step in what we think is the right
direction. At the same time, we understand that continued
connectivity between the provider-proponents of all these models is of
the utmost importance, and we all are working toward that goal.
-Ittai
