[10628] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: "Fed **deal** may speed MCI's ATM rollout"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Wed Mar 2 14:47:48 1994
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 09:19:41 PST
In-Reply-To: Marvin Sirbu <ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: ms6b+@andrew.cmu.edu, com-priv@psi.com
Well Marvin, I'd think twice before dismissing my speculation as "absurd on its
face" if I were you.
And remember what you see from the ivory tower may be just a little bit
different than what Schrader and Adams see in running their companies.
Obviously neither company has made an irrevocable decision *NOW* as to what it
will do about a situation that may come up a little more than a year from now.
So in *that sense* my remark is speculation. It is however "informed
speculation." Informed by off record discussions both within the private sector
and the US gov't sector.
Now lets deal with your reasoning point by point.
1) PSI would have to give up its current funding from Nysernet
Really? Why? Under the solicit rules in order to be elligible for NSF INTER
REGIONAL connectivity money a national service provider has to connect to all
the NSF sponsored NAPS. What chance do you think either Schrader or Adams has
of getting a regional network to choose either of their companies as an
inter-regional connectivity provider?? I think the chances are roughly zero.
To the best of my knowledge neither PSI or UUNET are even in that ballgame.
So yeah, they don't get Nysernet interregional conectivity money which they
weren't counting on anyway. Other than that, what current funding from Nysernet
are you talking about? It is my impression that individual Nysernet campuses
choose whether to get their network connections from PSI or not and this has
nothing to do with NAPS and network architecture politics.
Would non co-operation on PSI's part with the NAP scheme irk some of PSI's
customers? perhaps.... would it be enough to cause them to drop off....? I
doubt it.
So again what CURRENT Nysernet funding are you talking about?
You say: 2) PSI and UUnet become ineligble for receiving NSF funds via any
regional.
Yeah, right! And being excluded from a market where your chance of a sale was
close to zero is hardly a penalty!
Now finally the nub of the issue and uncertainty is found in your third point:
3) It _may_ (emphasis on may) become more difficult for academic
institutions which are linked via the NAPS to communicate with the
commercial customers of PSI and UUnet. This could be avoided only if
some third carrier (CORen?) connects to both the NAPS and the CIX and
thus routes the traffic to PSI and UUnet via the CIX instead of via the
NAPs. Since it cannot be commercially attractive for PSI or UUnet to
make it impossible for their commercial customers to interact with
academic insitutions, one would be forced to believe they are counting
on the second solution. But the second solution simply means that some
third network has to get paid for transit traffic between the CIX and
the NAPS; how is that in PSI or UUnet's commercial interest?
----
I say you should Remember that ANS is now a CIX member and that it could go
right along side of CoREN in playing the role you suggest. Also consider the
GIX concept where, via the FIX'es, PSI and UUnet's AUP blessed traffic *HAS*
been interconnecting.
Both PSI and UUNET are partner's with MFS and Sprint in MAE East and the first
GIX. It is probably safe to assume that they will stay in that and will connect
at the Washington NAP which MAE EAST and the GIX will probably become.
Remember there are some cost trade off's. If they stay out and irk some
customers in doing so, will that cost be more or less than the cost of
connection. Also remember the COMMERCIAL growth in the net. This is about to
become the dog... R&E which used to be the dog is about to become the tail.
The tail would be fooolish to assume that in 1995 it can still wag the dog. The
dog may begin to consider the networks of the tail irrelevant. The day may be
over when the whims of the NSF can successfully dictate the architecture of the
American internet and the NAPs could well be the test point to determine this.
Who is left to connect to the NAPs?? Sprint for sure. Long live Sprint. But if
I were Sprint having rolled out an ATM/SONET/ soon to be OC-3c commercial super
computer interconnect service, I'd be really stung to see the NSF paying the
expenses of my arch competitor MCI to do basically the same thing. Remember
Steve told Network World that MCI may sell COMMERCIAL access to this highly
"experimental" tax-payer VBNS. Any one think we'll see any cost sharing figure
from MCI any time soon.... any data showing that MCI is really spending far more
on establishing this service than it gets from the NSF?? I don't. Unless that
is NSF allows MCI to charge the entire SONETization of its National net as cost
sharing. This is a repetition of the SAME smoke and MIRRORS tactics that landed
these parties in front of Bouchers committe in March 1992.
