[2160] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: low-end users
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vince Fuller)
Tue Jan 28 20:35:12 1992
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 17:33:54 PST
From: Vince Fuller <vaf@Valinor.Stanford.EDU>
To: rtennant@library.Berkeley.EDU (Roy Tennant)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 28 Jan 92 14:03:13 PST
Please forgive me if I am off-base here (a not unlikely position), but
most of the regional networks have received sizeable chunks of change
for networking from the National Science Foundation. Is it really
too much to ask, then, that the *primary goal* of such organizations
be to serve the research and education networking needs of their region?
Should this not just include major universities, but also smaller
educational institutions? Community colleges, high schools, libraries?
In the case of BARRNet, the only "sizeable chunks of change" that we receive
from the NSF these days are occaisional grants from the "new connections"
program, which are used to connect new sites (small universities and community
colleges, mostly). Unfortunately, such money is in limited supply and requires
that we go through a lengthy grant propsal procedure for each new site. We've
done this, and will continue to do so where we think we will be funded. Other
than this, BARRNet has not received any NSF subsidy for several years, having
long since become self-sufficient as the NSF originally requested of all
regional networks.
Hasn't anyone ever heard of using some services to subsidize others?
No one seemed to know or care that AT&T used long distance rates
(a high-end service for which people should rightly pay) to subsidize
local dialing (a low-end but vital service) until it was too late to do
anything about it. Now folks who formerly were unable to afford long
distance calling but could at least afford local calls now can't do either.
As Craig Partridge already stated, this is a losing proposition in the face of
intense competition, which is a big problem for us (there are already three
other service providers in our region; I doubt any other regional network can
claim that unfortunate distinction). If you gouge your high-end sites to pay
for the low-end, the high-end folks will go to some other provider who doesn't
practice such market socialism. This leaves you with an even smaller group of
"wealthy" customers to provide a subsidy, resulting in ever rising costs.
--Vince
