[10756] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
March 94 COOK Report on Internet -> NREN published
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Tue Mar 8 02:39:10 1994
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 01:49:36 GMT
To: com-priv@psi.com
The March Issue of the COOK Report on Internet -> NREN was published today.
THE NETWORK AND K-12
FERDI SERIM'S PERSONAL VISION OF REFORM
The lead story is a 12,000 word interview with Ferdi Serim on new developments
in K-12 use of the internet. Because of time sensitive details in our story,
we will publish this summary to the network on Weds morning March 9, - having
already delayed publication for a full week.
We break three other stories:
1. PSI opens commercial internet venture in Japan.
2. Ameritech expected soon to announce region wide IP network to connect to
Chicago NAP.
3. We also talk publicly for the first time about our experience as an NREN
analyst at the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment.
JAPAN COMMERCIAL
INTERNET: PSI ENTERS
MARKET WITH IIKK
ACQUISITION
PP. 12-13, & 22.
The commercial internet has had a slow beginning in Japan. Centralized
control of telecommunications and feuding between commercial and academic
interests has kept prices and barriers to entry high.
IIKK is a foreign venture that succeeded in getting a license to offer
commercial internet access in Japan while a Japanese venture still hasn't been
licensed. Nevertheless a brief period in November (now know as the Internet
wars) lead to a PSI buyout of IIKK and to what people see as an encouarging
situation where the entry of PSI into the Japanesse market seems to be broadly
applauded. We present some extensive interviews with sources in Japan.
VBNS & RA AWARD AUTHORIZATIONS MADE -
MCI, MERIT, IBM AND ANS WIN, PP. 14-15
NSF 93-52 vBNS and Routing arbiter award authorizations announced by Steve
Wolff on February 11 were pretty much what we predicted a month ago. The vBNS
at a cost of $10 million a year goes to MCI for an ATM - SONET based OC-3c
network. ANS was not mentioned as a subcontractor in documents presented to
the National Science. However no one has attempted to refute our assertion
that this is the case. Sprint launches protest.
THE NSB "AWARD
AUTHORIZATION" MEMOS are published on pp. 16-17.
SEEKING SOURCE OF STEVE WOLFF'S POLICY
DIRECTION, P. 18
When Wolff, in FOIA response, states that he does not correspond with OSTP's
Nelson or Gibbons, we elevate our FOIA to the level of NSF Director & staff.
AXES AND CURSOR'S, pp. 19 - 22.
A Discourse on Public Policy and the Editor's Role at The US Congress Office
of Technology Assessment by Dave Hughes and Gordon Cook
In mid Febrauary, acting on his own initiative on the WELL , Dave Hughes told
TIME's Philip Elmer DeWitt his position on recent network events and described
in some detail the Editor's experience on the OTA Assessment of the NREN.
When Hughes sent us what he had written, we decided to publish it and
interpolate - writing in first person singular - our own views.
By December 12, 1990 critical proponents, including Senate Staffer Mike Nelson
were aware that the OTA report, going in the direction it was headed, was not
likely to come out the way they had hoped and therefore would not be an NREN
sales tool. The article will give readers a much clearer understanding of the
pressure brought to bear - pressures that included OTA's hiring a step
daughter of Congressman Hamilton Fish (who happens to be IBM's Congressman).
Brought in to put the study "on track", this person, by getting it
"redesigned" and getting some key issues thrown out, left it completely
derailed. Seven more months of work by the Editor and another year's effort
by his assistant were insufficient to produce an OTA "publishable" study.
(After a week to ten days I'll send this article to those who request it. In
the meantime hang on to your requests. I lack a good automated way to deal
with ones sent now.)
AMERITECH TO OFFER IP TRANSPORT THROUGHOUT ITS SERVICE AREA
MARK KNOPPER HIRED FROM MERIT TO RUN SERVICE
Ameritech has hired Mark Knopper from MERIT and will soon announce Ameritech
Advanced Data Services (AADS) which will be offerring AADSNet, an IP regional
network covering the Ameritech 5-state area (and beyond, eventually). The
network provides access in each LATA to multiple internet network service
providers (as yet unnamed), and AADS customers will have their choice of
primary and backup long-haul providers. They support the usual alphabet soup
(DS0, DS1, DS3, ATM, dialup PPP, ISDN...IP, IPX, OSI, SNA. From an official
document: "AADS has submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation to
act as Network Access Point (NAP) manager for the Chicago NAP, as part of the
1993 NSFNET solicitation. The AADSNet will be connected to the Chicago NAP.
AADSNet supports full and open connectivity to all internet providers, and
will provide equal and non discriminatory access. AADS will join appropriate
consortiums to foster good communications and participation among Internet
service providers."
