[2172] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Are We to Buy Speed for a Few or Connectivity for Many?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Martin Lee Schoffstall)
Wed Jan 29 09:30:55 1992
To: Stephen Wolff <steve@ncri.cise.nsf.gov>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 29 Jan 92 08:16:29 EST."
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 92 09:31:35 -0500
From: "Martin Lee Schoffstall" <schoff@psi.com>
Unfortunately Steve the only provable self supporting gigabit networks
are done through aggregating all the "little people" calling their friends
and family on the phone.
If there has been resistance that constitutes in some minds "gigabit
bashing" then it is a result of Newton's law of action/reaction to
some of the travelling medicine shows selling "magic elixirs". And
of course "timing", do you spend $1B for 1Gigabit today, ignoring
K-12, libraries, or wait 18 months to spend $10M for 1Gigabit, meanwhile
getting all the K-12 netblazers? This is of course a public policy
decision, one would like to have some discussion on this public
policy area.
Marty
I agree with Dave. Researchers need gb/s NOW. And any who have been
following the other thread - on "low-end users" and how they need MORE
service from the network, rather than less - may dimly recall me saying the
same thing at Gordon's first Gigabit-bashing Soiree and Symposium.
Accomplished and computer-literate researchers will cobble together bits and
fragments of FORTRAN, C, DCL, shell scripts and even if necessary JCL (!) to
get their job done; the low-end folk NEED power tools - plug and play, or
aim and squirt, choose your metaphor - like Lotus 1-2-3 to do arithmetic or
WordPerfect to format text, and the corresponding tools for navigating the
network and exploiting its resources will be correspondingly profligate with
bandwidth and capacity (remember the "fingers that launched a thousand
knowbots"), and if we don't provide it we shall have failed the community
who in the strongest sense need it the most.
flame off.
-s
