[2761] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
interim nren
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Gould)
Fri May 15 15:29:23 1992
Date: Fri, 15 May 92 15:26:49 -0400
From: sgou@seq1.loc.gov (Stephen Gould)
To: com-priv@psi.com
I have just returned from the Federal Network Council Advisory Committee
Meeting, and thought I would convey a few of the highlights of the NSFNET
recompetition as it was explained by Bob Aiken.
With regard to the two cooperative agreements that are to be awarded by NSF
to organizations to furnish and operate the telecommunications circuits
required to transport NSFNET backbone traffic:
-- 155 megabits per second capacity is the minimum that will be
acceptable to NSF
-- a promise to expeditiously upgrade capacity to 622 megabits per
second is strongly encouraged
-- backbone traffic, which will still be subject to the AUP, must be
segregated in some manner from other traffic that might be carried
by the same circuit provider, so that NSF can track the volume of
research and education traffic flowing through the system.
With regard to the cooperative agreement that is to be awarded by NSF for the
operation and management of the NSFNET routing authority:
-- the designated organization will also be responsible for setting up
"network access points" that will be major nodes on the backbone.
-- these NAPs will not be subject to the AUP, and thus available for
a variety of purposes apart from access to the NSFNET backbone. For
example, regional networks might choose to use the NAPs to inter-
connect among themselves so that they can directly swap traffic.
Commercial network providers (non-NSFNET) might use the NAPs to
collect traffic from the regionals or from each other, or to pass
qualified traffic onto the NSFNET backbone. If you meet certain
minimum qualifications, anyone can connect to any NAP.
-- the NAPs themselves will not be subsidized by NSF, and thus their
operating costs must be split among users. Some users, such as the
regional networks, might get a subsidy from NSF that can be applied
to NAP charges.
I recommend that you get the implementation plan from the NSF server, and
refer any questions to Bob Aiken (raiken@nsf.gov), Peter Ford (peter@
goshawk.lanl.gov) or Hans-Werner Braun (hwb@sdsc.edu).
Stephen Gould
Congressional Research Service
Library of Congress
sgou@seq1.loc.gov
