[104] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
FORWARDED from BITNET Policy List
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stan Barber)
Sun Nov 11 19:20:41 1990
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 90 18:07:38 CST
From: Stan Barber <sob@tmc.edu>
To: com-priv@psi.com
I thought this might be of interest....
>From: SOLOMON@UNIVSCVM.BITNET (Marty Solomon)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.policy-l
Subject: Re: BITNET 2
Message-ID: <POLICY-L%90111112550846@BITNIC.BITNET>
Date: 11 Nov 90 17:23:08 GMT
Sender: Discussion about BITNET policies <POLICY-L@BITNIC.BITNET>
Lines: 38
Comments: To: John Porter <ccjp@BU-IT.BU.EDU>,
Discussion about BITNET policies <POLICY-L@BITNIC.BITNET>
In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 9 Nov 90 15:34:04 EST from <ccjp@BU-IT.BU.EDU>
Let me put in two-cents worth on John Porter's provocative thoughts on the
future of BITNET and the Internet.
The federal government is in the process of "privatizing" the National
Science Foundataion Network. This means the NSFNET will be turned over to a
private firm to operate and manage. The private firm will charge whatever
is necessary to cover the costs and make a profit.
The second activity is to increase the NSF backbone speed to T-3 and
then to multi-gigabit spees by 1995, or so. Again, this private firm will
manage and operate this facility.
The reason that this seems necessary to the NSF folks
is that they think that nobody
can figure out how to set acceptable use policies
on a national network with commercial or quasi-commercial
users and not subsidize them. So "privatization" keeps the feds from having
to face that difficult question. Let the private firm do whatever it wants.
But look at the facts. It costs about $20 million per year to operate the pres
ent T-1 NSF backbone. The T-3 upgrade will cost anpther $10 million or so and
a gigabit backbone will double or triple that, perhaps.
All of this connectivity is now FREE. And yet only about 200 colleges and univ
ersities are LEGAL Internet customers. The others cannot afford the REGIONAL
connection costs. These TOO are highly subsidized by NSF.
I submit that even with falling communications costs over the next five years,
the costs to the end users will GO UP. Regionals will be forced to pay, not only
their unsubsidized real costs, (which NONE of them are doing today)
but they will be forced to pay for their
share of the backbone. If the 15 regionals paid their share of say $60 million
per year, the costs would be prohibitive.
This is where BITNET (CREN) will save the day. Because CREN is independent
of the feds, and relies on user dues and cooperation among members, it will
continue to thrive when the high costs of the Internet begin to pass back
to the customers and when most of the present subscribers will be forced
to discontinue Internet service and rely on CREN.
CREN is the safety net for higher education in America.
