[1375] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Middles and Manners
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eliot)
Wed Sep 18 23:09:09 1991
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 91 17:20:54 -0700
From: lear@turbo.bio.net (Eliot)
To: geoff@FERNWOOD.MPK.CA.US
Cc: com-priv@uu.psi.com, lear@turbo.bio.net
Reply-To: lear@turbo.bio.net
> What ANS has yet to learn about the networking business is you
>can't make money being the guy in the middle unless you bring something
>of substantial value to the table and your fun to deal with.
It seems to me that this whole matter centers around whether we
believe ANS to be the middle. If I get a full routing update of
everybody except direct ANS customers from another commercial
provider, and that update uses no ANS paths, then ANS is not the
middle for me. Of course, I won't be using the T3 backbone.
If, on the other hand, the other providers use ANS for
interconnectivity between commercial sites, then ANS has a real beef.
If ANS *is* in the middle, then just who is supposed to pay for their
services? NSF is willing to pay for R&E usage, but who will cover the
naughty bits?
> So far, ANS' table manners and dinner conversation have been pretty
>glib. The party seems to be devolving into a rather boisterous affair.
>Are fisticuffs to be brandished soon? Will Marty and Al meet in the OK
>corral and shoot it out or will we end up having an Internet Woodstock?
If we are to complain about ANS' table manners, we must certainly not
overlook that the fact that the PSI people sitting across have been
pouring soup into their proverbial laps. This would have me jumping
up and down, too.
--
Eliot Lear
[lear@turbo.bio.net]
