[1999] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Dialog
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert C. Lehman)
Fri Jan 17 11:13:52 1992
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 92 11:11:40 -0500
From: rlehman@watson.ibm.com (Robert C. Lehman)
To: bill@tuatara.uofs.edu
Cc: daveh@csn.org, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Bill Gunshannon's message of Fri, 17 Jan 92 7:48:12 EST <9201171251.AA08895@psi.com>
>>
>> We no longer have a national network.
>>
>
>And this is my biggest fear. We already have some very good disjoint
>networks (Compuserve, Genie, Prodogy, BIX, etc.) I am afraid the way
>things seem to be going, rather than finally providing ubiquitous world-
>wide network, we are going to end out with even more squabling siblings
>to the existing ones.
Simply put, the world isn't going to neatly evolve into one giant IP
connected network where everyone can get everywhere (and everything) for a
flat fee. Consequently, the interesting problems (which are technical,
economic and sociological) are how to allow different networks (some of
which [*GASP*] might not even be IP :-) to interoperate.
I think we all need to move beyond the current model of the Internet in
order to begin to think about what interoperability and connectivity will
evolve into. Not being able to get to BIX, or Compuserve or dialog.com
isn't a "failure" (fill in your favorite reason) in and of itself but
rather a realization that the existing technologies and policies don't
scale.
-Rob
