[1326] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Questions: ANS Plan for Commercial Services
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Roll)
Thu Sep 12 09:20:05 1991
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 91 08:18:55 CDT
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: proll@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Peter Roll)
Cc: staman@cic.net, hankins@cic.net, kjohnson@casbah.acns.nwu.edu
The ANS Plan for Commercial Services is an interesting document.
On first reading, I have some questions that I hope Ittai
Herschman or Al Weis may be able to answer. I would also be
interested in objhective comments and responses from Marty
Shoffstall and other associated with the CIX/PSI group.
PETER ROLL
VP FOR INFORMATION SERRVICES
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
CHAIRMAN, CICNET, INC.
Policy issues
=============
Why do RE and CO communities have to be considered as and treated
differently? Why not just one user community? Is differential
pricing between CO and RE legal or sustainable? Is it acceptable
or desirable public policy? Will changes to statutes be required?
Has a legal opinion been rendered on this matter?
Why is there any limitation on acceptable use of the ANS or ANS
CO+RE backbone? What is ANS's Acceptable Use Policy?
What is the ANS CO+RE Acceptable Use Policy?
Why is a commercial (ANS CO+RE) facility not willing to carry any and
all traffic, leaving the users/originators responsible for it?
Are there legal ramifications here that are not clear?
Why is it of interest to gather application type identification
information (page A-4)? This seems to be unwarranted and unnecessary.
There seems to be no representations of the commercial customers
that pay for the infrastructure pool on the allocation committee
(pg 6). Will this form of taxation without representation work,
and is it good policy?
Service and Technical Implications
==================================
Is discrimination in favor of large packet sizes (pg. A-6) going to
hike the imputed costs of casual e-mail traffic?? What are the
implications of this for various kinds of NREN uses? Will it
discourage the kind of mass low-performance communication among
scholars and students that we are trying to stimulate? If in
fact the imputed costs of casual e-mail traffic do NOT flow
back in any way to RE user organizations, with the large
packet size discrimination nevertheless inhibit e-mail and
other small-packet communications by CO organizations with which
we would like to encourage greater interaction?
What burdens will the COMBit technique place on midlevels to
charge back to their CO+RE users appropriate amounts to cover
the CO overpayments they make (pg. A-11)? Will the technology
to do this be available and affordable for midlevels? Will the
technique tend to force midlevels out of the CO business to avoid
this problem? Will it induce them to segregate CO and RE users
on separately-gatewayed subnets? What are these implications for
midlevels? Have these been thoroughly understood and debated by
the FARNet membership?
Definitions
===========
The definitions in Attachment C do not make it clear who is
included in the RE and CO categories. Schools, colleges, and
universities clearly qualify as RE. Westinghouse Research Labs
is a research organization, for instance. Does this mean that
Westingouse Electric Corp. is RE? That Westinghouse Research
must be separately incorporated to qualify as an RE org? Or
something else? Are Commercial Service Providers and Commercial
organizations both CO orgs? If so, why bother to differentiate
between them?
Early in the document the term "network service provider" is used
to include commercial orgs such as ANS, ANS CO+RE, PSI, CIX, etc.;
and midlevels which may accomodate RE and CO traffic. What kind
of "institution" (pg. C-1) is each of these network service
providers, or are they a separate class of org becuase they do
not, themselves, originate traffic?
Other questions
===============
On Pg. 9, is it ANS or ANS CO+RE that funds "....the difference
between the CO and the RE price of its attachement fee to the
infrastructure fund....?"
It is my understanding that NSF grants do not always cover the
total costs of LXC loops. Am I wrong about this?
