[2055] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
NREN and the Economics of Mainframes Versus Workstations
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Thu Jan 23 03:28:24 1992
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: 23 Jan 92 01:58:52 EST (Thu)
From: cook@tmn.com (Gordon Cook)
<<MESSAGE from>> Gordon Cook 23-JAN-92 1:58
cook@tmn
I had a very interesting conversation this evening witha com[putational
scientist who uses compuserve to send and receive internet email. The
reason why is fascinating. His university computer center charges his
grant $250 a month for his VAX account and the only thing he used the VAX
for was sending email. Compuserve costs far less..... even though I have
heard that they now charge 15 cents per every 2 kilobytes for internet
email. Is this true? If they have an email surcharge will attmail and
mcimail be far behind?
I asked him how he telnets to his friendly NSF supercomputer center. from
the sun workstation in the chemistry department was the answer.
Researchers are apparently abandoning the university mainframes en mass.
It would be interesting to know if any economist has looked at the cost to
american education of keeping its mainframe infrastructure alive. The
NREN legislation lets researchers use their grants for network expenses
for the first time. has anyone ever tried to quantify how much of this
money will go in the form of surcharges to university mainframes rather
than to buyingnew networking services for university scientists. the
economics behind NREN on many levels appear to be murky. it would be
interesting to know how the economics of use of university computing
centers are changing and to what extent access to the net *IS* still a
free good for university faculty.
I would appreciate hearing publicly or privately reactions to these
questions.
