[2857] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: CIX membership requirement for use of CIX.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jqj@duff.uoregon.edu)
Tue Jun 16 17:51:11 1992
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 14:49:51 MDT
From: jqj@duff.uoregon.edu
Marvin Sirbu notes that Mitch Kapor's restatement of the CIX membership
requirements closely resembles the definition of a common carrier:
>The distinction is the classic one between a common carrier -- which
>provides communications services for hire to all comers -- and a shared
>use system or private system in which services are not held out to the
>public at large.
It is presumably in the interest of the CIX and its members not to push
this analogy too far, lest ye be regulated as a common carrier.
It is also in the interest of customers of CIX members to argue that they
are *not* such "common carrriers", and hence should be able to take
advantage of CIX connectivity without themselves joining the CIX. For
example, an NSFnet-sponsored regional network that was organized as a
membership organization of higher ed institutions and did not sell
memberships on the same basis to commerical enterprises might argue that
it did NOT need to join the CIX even though it did act as an IP network
provider since it did not "offer these services to the general public on
the same terms." Given such an argument, the NSFnet regional would argue
that if ANS joined the CIX it should have CIX connectivity; however, such
a claim is the one Mitch Kapor denied at the beginning of this thread.
Another twisty little passage to explore is the question of what sort of
contractural relationship is needed between the CIX member and the customer
of IP services. Suppose ANS were to join the CIX, and then were to
slightly rewrite the terms of its relationship with its gateway customers
(e.g. some of those NSFnet regionals) such that the *members* of the
NSFnet regional (rather than the regional itself) were defined as the ANS
customers obtaining wide-area connectivity. If the NSFnet regional then
becomes (for these purposes) a bit pipe, wouldn't a CIX membership for ANS
grant to the end user the right to pass through the CIX?
JQ Johnson
Director of Network Services Internet: jqj@oregon.uoregon.edu
University of Oregon voice: (503) 346-1746
250E Computing Center fax: (503) 346-4397
Eugene, OR 97403-1212
