[1236] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
impact of settlements on provision of free services
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (emv@msen.com)
Wed Aug 28 05:30:32 1991
To: com-priv@uu.psi.com
Date: Wed, 28 Aug 91 03:25:06 -0400
From: emv@msen.com
I am concerned that a widespread settlement-based pricing scheme will
result in the disappearance of a number of significant internet resources,
or a drastic alteration in their character.
Say for sake of example I am a commercial site which has a sizable archive
of stuff which I put out for anonymous FTP. Apple would be as good an
example as any, they put out Mac stuff as product support plus a good sized
variety of materials of general use to the research, education, and
commercial network participants; or the site in the Boston area that uses
up its 56KB line serving up the DECUS CD-ROM. Or perhaps take DEC's
"gatekeeper" machine which is going to have X11R5 ready to go once it's
released.
If traffic to and from these archives is measured and expected to be paid
for by the commercial site by the megabyte, and if these charges are
substantial enough to attract the notice of the bean-counters, then a
rational firm is going to stop providing them except to its friends or to
those sites that don't force it to incur charges. FTP sites will shut
their doors to settlement-based networks to save money and perhaps also
to prevent hassles from bean counters or packet snoopers.
Much of the innovative work in network services is done at commercial firms -
the development of WAIS at Thinking Machines, UUNET and Software Tool
and Die's work on C News, UUNET's substantial source archives and
continuing development of ftp server code, etc. Unlike ANS's mythical
National Infrastructure Pool, these are very real and very current
concrete examples of what business is doing to maintain the vitality and
usability of the net. A per-byte charge on ``commercial'' network traffic
will force commercial sites to re-evaluate their generosity.
--
Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com
MSEN Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI 48103 +1 313 741 1120
for more information on MSEN products and services contact info@msen.com
