[1622] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Commercial traffic
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ellen.Hoffman@um.cc.umich.edu)
Sat Dec 7 12:07:38 1991
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 91 12:03:06 EST
From: Ellen.Hoffman@um.cc.umich.edu
To: com-priv@psi.com
THE FOLLOWING IS A LETTER TO THE INTERNET COMMUNITY FROM
ALAN WEIS OF ANS AND ERIC AUPPERLE OF MERIT:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has requested that ANS
establish appropriate routing controls to ensure that
federally sponsored networks that do not wish to carry
commercial traffic are not burdened by commercial traffic. ANS
will work cooperatively with Merit to ensure that controls are
put in place to prevent commercial traffic from traversing
federally sponsored gateways and networks that have indicated
that they do not wish to carry commercial traffic.
ANS commercial traffic will be restricted from interchange
with federally sponsored networks which have not signed an ANS
connectivity agreement or developed an alternative plan with
ANS that will meet their requirements. This restriction on ANS
commercial traffic also covers other Internet connected
networks such as state, federal agency and international
networks that do not wish to receive commercial traffic.
For the interchange to occur, federally sponsored midlevels
must have in place a signed connectivity agreement with ANS
which has been designed to meet the requirements established
by NSF. Participation in the basic connectivity agreement
between a midlevel and ANS is maintained without any charges
to the midlevel. ANS connectivity agreements are currently in
place for several midlevels: BARRNet, MichNet, Midnet, OARNet,
MRNet, NYSERNet, and PREPnet; several others are in the
process of final approval. As the list grows, it will be
posted. Customers at campuses and research organizations
attached to these networks will be able to access ANS
connected commercial service providers directly via the
Internet.
As requested by NSF, ANS will block restricted networks from
exchanging traffic with ANS attached commercial networks by
the use of network route filtering. The ANS router which
resides at a commercial premise will not receive routes to
restricted non-commercial networks from the ANS backbone. This
filtering will be verified and monitored by Merit in their
role as contractor under the cooperative agreement with NSF.
The route filtering plan implemented by ANS inside the ANS
network is designed to support several features. Each
federally sponsored midlevel network will continue to be
responsible for the policies and routing plans within their
own networks. The ANS plan does not impose any new changes or
requirements on these networks whether they participate in the
ANS plan or not. Midlevel networks that use default routing
can continue to do so without exposure to commercial networks.
ANS's first commercial customer, Dialog, will interconnect to
the ANS network in San Jose California as an ANS CO+RE
customer. This enables Dialog to provide fee based commercial
information services over the Internet to other networks that
have agreed to support the exchange of commercial traffic with
the ANS network in one of the following ways:
1. Participate in the ANS Connectivity Agreement.
There is no charge for participation in this
program. Those who participate are eligible for
funds to help build their infrastructure.
2. Interconnect to a network service provider that
participates in the ANS Connectivity Agreement.
3. Establish an ANS CO+RE connection. This is a fee
based ANS attachment service for sites that choose
to interconnect directly to the ANS network.
We are excited by the prospect of major information providers
such as Dialog being available to the academic and research
communities via the Internet, and recognize that such
connections have the potential to save many institutions the
additional expenses they now incur to reach such services via
private networks. We will continue to work with the entire
Internet community to make such opportunities a reality, and
to promote interconnectivity so that such services can be
broadly available.
Alan Weis Eric Aupperle
Advanced Network and Services, Inc. Merit Network, Inc.
