[1819] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Commercial Use Scenario Part 2
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Wed Jan 1 14:41:53 1992
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: 1 Jan 92 14:21:54 EST (Wed)
From: cook@tmn.com (Gordon Cook)
<<MESSAGE from>> Gordon Cook 01-JAN-92 14:21
cook@tmn
Unless there is a BIG flaw in my argument, what we are dealing with then,
must be predominantly instances where a commercial organization wishes to
use the network to SELL things to the research and education community.
For example: McGraw Hill using the network to deliver tailor-made text
books to many campuses to use an example that Al cited at harvard a year
ago. Or Dialogue using the network to allow faculty and students to
search its databases? Or CARL using the network to allow people to search
it's files and request facsimile delivery of articles once the user has
given CARL a Visa or Mastercard number to bill to. The Faxon company is
also marketing a service similar to the CARL service. CARL and FAXON
(correct me if I error) are presumably using the backbone now to deliver
information for which users pay. I suspect there are other uses similar
to this. (Paul Peters would know I'd think.)
If I am correct that there is currently under the present acceptable use
policy some use of the backbone by information providers to sell
information **and** that the NSF has no plans to **change** its stated
acceptable use policy, then I also fail to see where the big crush of
users who will need commercial status to communicate with the research and
education community will come from.
If CARL can do what it is doing, I have difficulty seeing why Dialogue
could not do the same thing. Still if I am a university, I will still
have good access via sprintnet to some other commercial packet net, or
even direct phone call. It is difficult for me to see why I would under
such circumstances, presure my mid-level to sign the connectivity
agreement solely so that my students and faculty may talk to Dialogue..
Now one of the BEST recent features of the net is the gateways between
Compuserve, ATTmail and MCImail (and maybe some other commercial mails I
am unaware of?) Which networks currently house these gateways? If one of
these commercial mail networks signed with ANS, and I were a university I
would hate to loose that access. Still would I give my mid-level hell if
it didn't sign the connectivity agreement with ANS? Hard to say.
In short, if there really are to be no rule changes, what I am having
difficulty seeing is who all these new commercial users will be, where
they are, and why they will have to sign up as commercial? Companies that
**really** did want to do enterprise networking and wanted to talk to the
r&e community every now and then would I suppose sign directly with ANS
because it has the biggest back bone. (And I guess this is why PSI and
Uunet are angry since as the list well knows they have questioned the
circumstances under which ANS has its big backbone.)
Finally even with the last example does it prove instructive to ask where
the market is? How many of those companies who want to do enterprise
networking already have their own private networks? 70% of the Fortune
500 do according to the statistics that I have seen. And again, if one of
THESE wanted to OUTSOURCE its network to ANS would the fact that it could
talk to the R&E community as well be enough to make it pick ANS over the
other alternatives that I have mentioned in part 1 of this note?
