[2258] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
NREN: whither connectivity
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Mon Feb 3 11:15:46 1992
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 92 11:08:29 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: "Kent W. England"'s message of Wed, 29 Jan 92 21:18:20 EDT <9202031418.AA01868@psi.com>
Lew Law, Scott Bradner and I put the 10Mbps link between Harvard and
BU around 1986 (maybe it was 1987.) Although interesting, the first
real attempt to use the bandwidth was a LandSAT project which accessed
a graphical database at Harvard, MIT and BU via X10/X11 (there was
already a T1 between Harvard and MIT.)
As soon as word got out they were doing that, powers-that-be at BU
began insisting that they use their grant money to put in their own
microwave dish for fear (not reality, because it was never really
deployed fully, this was in reaction to a grant proposal to utilize
the three-way link and a few hours of experiments) that they'd swamp
the link.
I wonder how much we suffer from that sort of neuroses in general?
That is, we can do all these wonderful things with higher bandwidth,
but anyone who actually tries is summarily shot (generally by being
examined under a microscoped and judged as not being worthy by those
who don't use the particular bandwidth eater.)
-Barry Shein
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