[1227] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: technical details
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Schrader)
Tue Aug 27 16:35:09 1991
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 91 16:32:25 -0400
From: wls@psi.com (William Schrader)
To: ittai@shemesh.ans.net
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com, lear@turbo.bio.net
Both Geoffrey and Ittai are right, let me paraphrase for brevity:
If all Regionals joined the CIX, there is no need for a
government funded backbone (Geoffrey); and
by signing the ANS agreement, the Regionals are taking advantage of
the government subsidy provided to ANS on their behalf (Ittai).
There are several essential differnces:
1. The CIX and the CIX Association are "scaleable", assuming Regionals
plan to stay in business, assuming the IXC's, BOCs, and foreign telcos
join the US domestic market (a fair set of assumptions). The CIX Assoc
has invited others to participate, including ANS.
2. As Regionals, telco's and other IP providers join the CIX, they
have a vote and enjoy self determination. They join as a peer of the
existing CIX members. I presume that this has importance to some of
the players. At the very least, it is not dominated by one entity.
Not that I am suggesting ANS is attempting to dominate, but it will
become the default condition in time.
3. No one has yet brought up the issue of "settlement" this round, so
let me add that the settlement agreement for the CIX Association members
is a flat fee of $10,000/year to route all the traffic they wish at a
maximum speed of T1. The members may vote to change this fee as new CIX
interconnection points are added, or points are connected by CIX bandwidth
at T1 or at T3. I know of no customer of any Regional or national
network which has requested settlement, and I know of no IP carrier
who wants settlement today on anything but a fix price basis. So,
again, we are attempting to maintain and improve stability by
introducing the CIX to the marketplace.
4. Finally, I concur with Ittai that neither the CIX nor ANS appear to be
mutually exclusive alternatives, necessarily. But, I have not studied
the fine print of the the ANS agreements as to the term of the agreement
and whether or not someone can pull out after six months, as you can
in the CIX. I must study this in more detail.
Hope this helps in the thought process.
Bill Schrader
