[2416] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Billing systems
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU)
Wed Feb 26 16:40:10 1992
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 92 16:38:57 EST
From: drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9202261630.AA05551@psi.com> "schoff@psi.com"
Martin Lee Schoffstall notes that it's difficult to determine who is
"responsible" for sending any particular packet, and thus hard to
determine which host to bill. It seems to me that one solution
(albeit difficult) is to have each layer of the system charge the next
higher one. Thus, packet transport charges FTP, which in turn charges
the user requesting the transfer. This would probably be a mess to
implement, but it might not be significantly more complicated than DNS
or BGP. There are at least two interesting approaches:
1) Each part of the system sends bills to other parts of the system.
The bills are ultimately settled in some sort of accounting system.
This requires a network of billing daemons.
2) There is some sort of electronic money (think of coins in a pay
phone) that parts of the system pass among each other. The coins are
generated and ultimately cashed in for real money by some sort of
accounting system.
Dale Worley Dept. of Math., MIT drw@math.mit.edu
--
Diplomacy: The art of saying "nice doggy", until you can find a big rock.
-- Will Rogers
