[10835] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Settlements
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Martin L. Schoffstall)
Fri Mar 11 20:45:38 1994
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 16:40:34 +0000
From: "Martin L. Schoffstall" <marty@psilink.com>
To: "Dan Lynch" <dlynch@interop.com>, "com-priv" <com-priv@psi.com>,
Dan,
Back to the Future!
What you are describing reads like the NSF/ANS business plan of years ago,
and still fumbling forward like the "National Security Felt Depot" and other
such government support programs.
Actually it reads like the AT&T consent decreee of the early 80's divesting
the long haul network from the local distribution companies like BellSouth,
NYNEX et al.
And of course that architecture continues to move forward - NOT!
For instance:
(1) the originator of the court case (MCI) is now entering into the local
loop provision, building what they sued about only 15 years ago
(2) a local loop Competitve Access Provider (CAP), MFS, is now offering
interexchange data service
(3) five cable operators last year announced "CablePhone" providing a
possible cable based national phone service
(4) Ameritech et al wants to provide long distance service at least within
their local region if not nationally.
(5) ad nauseum
This didn't even work 10 years ago with Telenet's X.25 connections to the
various RBOC X.25 networks - financially.
But maybe it will work after the next round of re-regulation, especially if
the trough you build says "Clipper Inside" on it.
:-)
Marty
> Return-Path: <dlynch@interop.com>
> Message-Id: <9403062011.AA12197@polaris.interop.com>
> Date: 6 Mar 1994 12:11:09 -0800
> From: "Dan Lynch" <dlynch@interop.com>
> Subject: Settlements
> To: "com-priv" <com-priv@psi.com>, "Miles R Fidelman" <fidelman@
> civicnet.org>
>
> Reply to: Settlements
> Let me play angel's advocate here... (Already seems to be an over
> supply of devil's advocates on the planet, eh?)
>
>
> Miles wrote earlier regarding NAPs:
>
> >iv. what should the rules be
>
> >something pretty much like the CIX rules: anyone can interconnect, and
> >everyone has to accept traffic from everyone else without settlements
>
> Now what is so darn wrong with the idea of "settlements"? To a simple
> minded person (such as myself) Settlements just mean that if you and I
> are doing similar work for the world of "customers" out there and "I"
> end up doing some of that work for "your" customer, then you ought to
> pay me something for doing part of the job. I can see a theoretical
> argument of "If the nature of the business is that we both (all) end up
> doing an equal amount of work for each other, then, heck, why bother
> with all the record keeping". Is that the underlying reason for the
> agurment for their being no settlements?
>
> My simple minded view of how the Internet has evolved thus far is that
> all the "carriers" (of IP traffic) are acting like the former AT&T in
> the "US only" marketplace. They "owned" the customer end to end. So
> who cared about internal settlements? The local phone providers just
> took all the traffic and sent it out to its destination and as long as
> it stayed inside the AT&T system there as no reason to do settlements
> from a P&L standpoint for the company. (I'm sure the individual state
> tax authorities forced them to break it out along those lines for
> individual P&Ls along those lines...) Well, the current IP providers
> are acting like there is no "outside world" to them. Gee, it just ain'
> t so.
>
> What about the following idea: What is missing here is a true "IXC"
> for IP traffic. A "carrier" whose only purpose was to take all "local"
> traffic and forward it to the appropriate "local" destination?
> Forgetting who might own such an entity and forgetting the perhaps
> idiotic "Star" topology that that business model might look like, isn't
> that the place where settlements would need to happen?
>
> Why has not such an entity come into existence? Or, has it and I have
> not noticed?
>
>
> Dan
>
>
