[1687] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The WEIS/AUPPERLE letter
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Martin Schoffstall)
Tue Dec 10 23:36:31 1991
In-Reply-To: <9112101617.AA12447@nic.cerf.net>
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 91 21:11:52 -0400
To: "Laura Breeden" <breeden@farnet.org>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU, sob@tmc.edu
From: "Martin Schoffstall" <schoff@mail.psi.net>
Reply-To: schoff@psi.com
>DATE: Tue, 10 Dec 91 08:17:15 PST
>FROM: Laura Breeden <breeden@farnet.org>
>
>Regarding competition within "regions" among network service
>providers, Stan is correct. There are no exclusive regions
>that I am aware of. Several national providers, including
>ANS, PSI, and UUNET, operate throughout the U.S. and in
>a number of foreign countries. California, Texas, and the New
>England states are served by more than one "regional" network.
>Several "regional" networks include strong, independent state
>networks. Although the IP network industry is still in its
>infancy, a competitive environment already exists. Competition
>will be further advanced in the coming months as NSF recompetes
>the NSFNET backbone award with multiple providers and as more
>telcos/RBOCS/systems integrators enter the business.
>
Unfortunately it isn't "coming months". It is october92 + maybe 18months.
The original solicitation for the nsfnet was to last until oct92, many
potential backbone providers were gearing up for oct92 to offer
competitive, even reliable service (for instance switches that don't do fsck).
However now the providers have to ask themselves:
(1) will there be yet another extension - the uncertainty button has
been pushed.
(2) if the current provider is getting upto $10M/year and the followon
provider can get upto $2M - what is being said here? Must be the ramp
down, no big future here.
Marty
PS: I'm glad that farnet is trying to foster competition.
