[1700] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: nsfnet as large-scale testbed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Laura Breeden)
Wed Dec 11 14:36:52 1991
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 91 11:37:13 PST
From: Laura Breeden <breeden@farnet.org>
To: LAWS@ai.sri.com, com-priv@psi.com
Ken,
The recently passed HPCC bill says about the NREN, in Section 2,
"Findings":
A high-capacity and high-speed national research and education
computer network would provide researchers and educators with
access to computer and information resources and act as a test-
bed for further research and development of high-capacity and
high-speed computer networks.
The NREN is described in much greater detail in Sec. 102 of the same
bill. Among other things, Sec. 102 (b) says that "Federal agencies and
departments shall work with private network service providers, State
and local agencies, libraries, educational institutions and organizations
and others, as appropriate, in order to ensure that the researchers,
educators, and students have access, as appropriate, to... high-
performance computing systems, electronic information resources,
other research facilities, and libraries."
It is not unreasonable to read the bill and think "Congress wants
a production network." Nor is it unreasonable to think "Congress
wants a research testbed." Based on my conversations with Federal
agency staff, many of the priorities will be determined as part of
the cooperative interagency process that the legislation also mandates.
In fact, this cooperation has been a fact of life since the mid-80s
at least, and is demonstrated in examples such as the Federal
Networking Council, the Federal Networking Advisory Committee,
the OSTP report entitled "Grand Challenges" which is referred to
in the legislation, etc. The people in Washington who have labored
to make this happen deserve our thanks. The new legislation clearly
delineates a role for the users, for industry, and for the providers
of network service (as well as for the mission agencies, the
universities, and others).
The OSTP document is now being redrafted in keeping with the progress that
has been made since the last version was released. I think
it will be available early in 1992. Agency staff often refer to
this document as "the bible" -- it's an important one to watch.
You can grab a copy of the legislation from MERIT (host
nis.nsf.net, directory nsfnet, file nrenbill.txt). It
is worth reading.
thanks,
Laura Breeden
FARNET
