[10712] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: "Fed **deal** may speed MCI's ATM rollout" (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Humphrey)
Sun Mar 6 18:35:46 1994
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 1994 15:09:46 -0500 (EST)
From: Doug Humphrey <digex@ss1.digex.net>
Reply-To: Doug Humphrey <digex@ss1.digex.net>
To: com-priv@psi.com
> Sprint's official protest, indeed filed by their legal dept.
I am glad to see that they are protesting it, since it might shed
some light on the process. Still, the *why* they are protesting
it is not so easily known. Should be fun to watch!
>You're right about $50 million being small potatoes to these carriers,
>but it isn't about the money. Not a big. It's *all* about the
>visability and the *bragging* rights on this contract. Those are worth
>potenitally hundreds of millions to these companies as they get to tout
>the fact that *they* are running the govt.'s version of the information
>superhighway.
That is your take on it; doesn't have to actually turn out that way
though. Could very well be that this is *the* contract that turns
out to be the seed, the center, the core structure of the NII. In
that case, this one is worth fighting tooth and nail for. There
should be blood everywhere, and in fact the thing that people here
seem to be wondering is "where's the blood?"
It could also be that there is another one coming down the pike that
is the real one, the one that will be the nucleus, and that the
NSF stuff that we are all discussing is only going to be a backwater,
special purpose, no account little net hung off the side of the real
NII, just like a NASA Sciences Internet is today.
The fog is thick right now; the only image that has come together THUS
FAR is the NSF stuff. Is everyone betting that this is the ONLY
communications infrastructure RFP that is going to hit the streets?
Doug
