[980] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
The question is ...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Sat Jul 13 23:26:49 1991
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1991 22:26:06 CDT
From: SEAN@dranet.dra.com (Sean Donelan)
To: com-priv@psi.com
X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"com-priv@psi.com"
The net is a very diverse place. It is shaped, molded, even twisted by
many of the same forces that effect the "real world." Not because the
net is different from the real world, but because the same types of people
do the same types of things wherever they are. The net doesn't create new
forms of behavior. Rather it creates cheaper, faster and easier ways of
expression. As the cost comes down, more and more points of view can
be expressed.
But as I said, the net is a very diverse place. The portion called the
Internet is no exception. The Merit reports show that all Netnews (NNTP)
traffic accounts for about 11% of the bytes on the backbone (and that includes
redundant feeds). What are all the rest of those bytes doing? Does it
matter as long as it is less expensive than the alternatives? Is it more
effective to employ equivalent of network zoning laws, or to spend a lot
of effort on stopping such traffic?
The questions about the future of the network aren't really "If", but rather
"How." By directly funding the network, Congress will be able to influence
its development. If Congress chooses not to directly fund it, the net will
grow anyway but perhaps in different ways. Compared to the commercial
networks, the Internet is a rather open place. Even shareholders of company
can't complain to the management of the company like any user on the net can
flame the organizations that run the net, or anything else on which they
care to comment. This is sometimes upsetting to traditional organizations
that aren't used to such vigorous questioning.
The Internet is almost like C-SPAN into parts of the U.S. research community.
Many of the biggest companies have already discovered computer networks, and
invest heavily in them. But most aren't using their networks to help basic
research, or education. They are using their networks to make money. Even
at universities, the university's "business" information systems and networks
(money, grades, etc) aren't often not shared with the education part of the
university.
There are commercial networks transmit anything that can be digitized. There
are private networks used to make deals for any commodity on earth. The
people who are running those networks have rarely heard of the Internet, and
even more rarely care about it. The high speed data networks are already being
created. The question is how the U.S. research and education community will
be able to afford to connect.
My own concern is whether the NREN funding will decrease the network diversity
now present in the U.S. The wisest thing the folks who created the Internet
did was to steal good ideas from any where they could find them. The worst
thing other network makers have done is say "This is how a network is built."
A lot of the most interesting applications that use the Internet were developed
elsewhere. UUCP gave Netnews, BITNET has LISTSERV, even OSI (TCP/IP's arch
enemy :-) gave Internet X.500. But even the wise people who run the Internet
say foolish things. The most frightening thing I heard at the IETF meeting
in St. Louis was that because of NSFnet funding hundreds of universities have
wired their campuses just for TCP/IP so they could connect the Internet.
I don't want to see the U.S. R&D community put all of its network eggs in
one basket. Or become too dependent on one source (congressional funding
means congressional strings). When accountants look over the books of
companies, one of the warning signs is when too much income comes from a
single source.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@dranet.dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
"Cheap and easy communication helps create wealth."
- The Economist, July 6, 1991
