[10424] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
NSF appears to decide not to Inform the Net community: WHY?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Tue Feb 22 20:28:25 1994
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 17:25:59 PST
To: com-priv@psi.com
Gee, thanks to FOIA I now have official confirmation that the award to MCI was
actually for an ATM net....
Lots of interesting things. For example the number of proposals for routing
arbiter received: two. Number of proposals funded for routing arbiter: two.
Nice competitive odds there.
One thing wasn't there and that was any mention of ANS in the description of
the vBNS award. I have been told by multiple people who claim first hand
knowledge that ANS is a sub-contractor. Of course this could be a coordinated
campaign of disinformation. Still I have to think that if it were, there are
enough people who'd love to see me prooven wrong that I would have been told
so and probably very publicly. But that hasn't happened.
Still to understand what MCI has sold the NSF it is important to understand
the switch router situation.... without acknowlegement of this the MCI
position cannot be adequately evaluated. So WHY have we apparently buried ANS
so well? Were they that big an embarrassment? Or **did MCI mark ANS's
participation in the solicitation as proprietary?** And if MCI isn't ready to
use IBM/Northern telecom/ANS equipment, what did they bid? AT&T switches? Or
are they going to use Fujitsu?
The solicitation says that sections considered proprietary must be so marked
on submission and that the winning solicitation becomes public with the making
of an award. OK we have an award but no winning proposal to review. Yet by
October 1 of this year, NSF will have already spent $6 million dollars of the
50 alloted to MCI. Why must the vBNS be built by stealth?
Steve how about explaining why the clean up of the proposal apparently takes
weeks? The national Science Board was informed by Neal Lane on Feb1 of the
awards in considerable detail. Been more than 3 weeks since that date.
Plenty of time to sanitize and disclose the props. You said that DGA was told
to do something else first. Please give me the name of that person so I can
see what they say about accountability. And how about giving a date for
release? and if you are somehow unable to do this because now because its
DGA's decision.... please give me the name of the repsonsible person in DGA.
We need to have a talk. Why if I didn't know better, I'd think you guys are
trying to hide something!
