[995] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: some dumb questions from the gallery
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stan Barber)
Mon Jul 15 14:05:56 1991
From: sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber)
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1991 10:39:22 CDT
In-Reply-To: mcostel@kaman.com (Mark Costello)
To: mcostel@kaman.com (Mark Costello), com-priv@psi.com, nren-discuss@psi.com
The only problem I see with this arguement is that it does not necessarily
provide the infrastructure needed for gigabit networking research and deployment.
The government (since the days of the ARPAnet) has provided this infrastruture
to promote not only network research but also network usage.
With the exception of ANS, none of the network providers I am aware of are
interested in providing gigabit networking because they believe there is no
market for it.
I am not saying that government funding is necessary for ANY networking. I
believe it is necessary for gigabit networking until there is a large
market for it and the technology to provide it is as cheap as that that
provides T1 today.
Right now the commercial providers are concentrating on T1 and below. There is
nothing wrong with that. In fact, if NREN was just to provide subsidies to
educational institutions for networking, providing the dollars directly to
the end-users for their selected provider would be a fine approach.
--
Stan internet: sob@bcm.tmc.edu Director, Networking
Olan uucp: rutgers!bcm!sob and Systems Support
Barber Opinions expressed are only mine. Baylor College of Medicine
