[1845] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Commercial Use Scenario CONTINUED aka Com-bits Divined
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Fri Jan 3 01:13:08 1992
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: 3 Jan 92 00:40:53 EST (Fri)
From: cook@tmn.com (Gordon Cook)
<<MESSAGE from>> Gordon Cook 03-JAN-92 0:40
cook@tmn
On Dec 26 I said > Again what is unanswered in the Communications Week
Dec 23rd article is when the mid-level gets to sign the gateway or
cooperative agreement. The claim is made that all they are asked to sign
is a connectivity agreement which apparently places them under no
obligation except to receive commercial traffic from ANS' customers.
On Jan 2, Jordan Becker replied: Not quite. When a peer network signs
the connectivity agreement, they agree to support the exchange of traffic
bidirectionally between R&E classified networks hosted by the peer
network, and commercial networks which are reachable via ANS. Networks
are classified by the acceptable use policy that they choose to conform to.
Jordan, I thought that someone had said somewhere in the traffic on this
list in the last 3 weeks that the connectivity agreement could be signed
by the mid-level at no obligation to the mid-level except to receive the
commercial packets. Apparently this was a mistaken assumption.
I am not sure that I understand your preceding paragraph. i sounds like
you are saying that if I am a mid-level - say for example that I am
Suranet and I sign your connectivity agreement, then I am agreeing that I
have some institutions that are attached which wish to receive commercial
transmissions from ANS. My institutions that wish to receive the
commercial transmissions, presumably wish to return them. (ie this is
what you mean by bi-directional) You say that networks are classified by
the acceptable use policy they choose to conform to. Does it follow that
if I sign a connectivity agreement with ANS, I am agreeing to classify at
least a PART of the institutions attached to my network as commercial and
pay com bit surcharges on their traffic? This must be correct because
then the next exchange between us makes sense
Cook: > It even gives them something for nothing -- participation in the
> infrastructure pool.
Beker: Not really, they have to carry the commercial traffic within their
infrastructure, which costs them something. This is the reason for the
infrastructure pool.
Here we get to the ticklish part: I said on Dec 26:
> We read that a regional network that wants to send commercial traffic
to
> other regional networks over the ANS network has to pay ANS a fee.
This
> sounds to me like the gateway agreement.
On Jan 2 Jordan replied: You are correct.
On might conclude that signing a connectivity agreement meant accepting
AND sending commercial traffic, therefore if I were SURANET and signed a
connectivity agreement, I would have traversed the commercial boundary and
find myself with no choice but also to sign EITHER the gateway or
cooperative agreement? Is there any other way to interpret the exchange
above which you ended on Jna 2 by saying "you are correct?"
I am reading you as implying that there *IS* a linkage between the
cooperative agreement and the gateway and connectivity agreements. i am
correct here?
In your reply to my "Commercial Use Scenario Part 1" message you say that
some of the mid-level will have to declare some of their subscribers as
commercial so that they can talk to your commercial subscribers. I THINK
that I am BEGINNING to understand. (HOORAY says the PEANUT Gallery!)
However, again lets test the understanding with an example. If I am
Suranet and I want my attached institutions to be able to deal with Dialog
(thanks steve cisler) on a commercial basis, I must name every attached
institution that I am assigning the right to communicate commercially with
dialog and then pay com bit surcharges on the % of traffic that they send
to dialog?
But didn't Steve Wolff make a posting here back around the 15th of
December that said an institution could "aver" that its dealings with
dialog were R&E and deal away. If this is correct then WHY on earth would
any university say: "my dealings with dialog are commercial. Call SURANET
and tell them so ANS can assess com bit surchages?"
Of course if at the instructions of the NSF, a filter is placed on Dialog's
routing and ALL of SURANET is blocked because SURANET has not yet signed
the connectivity agreement, then the University of Florida for example
would never have the oportunity to aver that it had genuine R&E business
to do with Dialog?
Still if Dialog is all that my institutions are missing out on I cannot
imagine why on earth I would EVER agree to opening the pandora's box that
the connectivity and related agreements seem to involve??
I DO UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY THAT A MID-LEVEL CAN CHOOSE **NOT** TO SIGN THE
CONNECTIVITY AGREEMENTS WITHOUT ANY OTHER PENALTY?
Could we test this by the CARL sale of articles to bank cards via fax
machine over the backbone that I asked about yesterday. Here is an
ongoing commercial sounding application that will travel the ANS backbone.
May the University of Florida use this service without causing SURANET to
have to either block it or sign the connectivity agreement?
Finally on Dec 26 I said: > If I read that correctly such agreements
could be quite costly to the mid-levels. However I have yet to see an
example of exactly how much signing such an agreement would cost a given
mid-level.
Jordon replied: Please see the ANS plan for Commercialization which may
be FTP'ed from ftp.ans.net. There are examples contained in these
documents.
Gordon answers on Jan 3: I have indeed FTPed these documents as long ago
as mid Sept. I have been unable to understand them. No one at the Office
of Technology Assessment to whom I have shown them has been able to
understand them either. Sorry....
Jordan also said: Even if ANS was willing to put the 'extra dollars' in
the infrastructure pool on behalf of the commercially classified networks
that can not pay, this would still not give us the right to transport this
traffic into midlevels that can not support it for legal or other reasons.
This is why the connectivity agreement is desired and, midlevel consent
is required as a minimum.
I will close by asking Jordan what he means by a "network that cannot
support it for LEGAL or OTHER reasons." I guess by legal is meant: if I
want commercial bits coming nto to my R&E institution I can have them
unless I pay extra for them? What would be the "OTHER?"
This still seems to me to be a really arcane excercise in the art of hair
splitting. Why? Because Steve himself hypothesized that there would be
cases where Dialog traffic was legitimately R&E. Seems to me that
Dialogue could have saved themselves a pack of headaches if they had
signed with CERFnet. Seriously - can/will anyone say that their traffic
then would have been judged R&E without batting an eyelash?
