[386] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Attacking the regional networks
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Richard Mandelbaum)
Fri Mar 15 14:12:27 1991
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 91 13:57:40 -0500
From: Richard Mandelbaum <rma@tsar.cc.rochester.edu>
There has been a lot of discussion in this forum concerning
the regional networks and their "de facto" user group, FARNET.
I'd like to make put in a plug for the much maligned regional
networks. If they hadn't accepted the networking challenge or
opportunity which the NSF supercomputer program presented us with in
1985 there would be no 1991 Internet as we know it. We would instead
have either the Telco's vision of the future (per packet X.25
networking!!) or BITNET or perhaps UUCP (1985 style)!
The regionals, including Marty and Bill of PSI, Al of ANS, the Merit
people and a bunch of others built the current structure. It is far
from a perfect structure, there are many problems for the future. The
problem of the for-profit vs. non-profit structure, of privatization,
of commercialization, of the future of the Backbone are certainly with
us, but those are the problems of success, not of failure!!
It has been asked, what are the accomplishments of FARNET.
FARNET is the the organization ofregional networks and
I think the regional networks, as a group, can be very proud
of their accomplishments.
I believe that the regional networks still have a very important
place in the future.
As one of the main architects of the spin-off of PSI from NYSERNET, I
don't believe that that future is in the provision of raw TCP/IP
services. NYSERNET buys those services from PSI today, from whatever
commercial entity is willing to give us the best deal tomorrow!
But, the commercial entities will not support the new, innovative,
experimental things which the regionals have supported, can support,
and will support in the future.
In the past year NYSERNET started projects which have or will extend
internet connectivity to 3 school districts in New York City, in the
South Bronx, in Bedford-Stuyvesant/Fort Greene in Brooklyn, in Howard
Beach in Queens. We have started a distance-learning project in the
high schools of Livingston-Steuben-Wyoming Counties in New York State.
We are connecting the science high schools in New York City,
Bronx H.S. of Science, Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant, etc.
We are trying an experimental counseling program aimed
at New York State High Schools and modelled on
the Cornell Uncle Ezra program. We are about to connect up the New
York State Library system and have already connected up the New York
City Public Library. We have extended connectivity to the Buffalo
Museum of Science and the New York Museum of Natural History. These
are but a few of the projects we are involved in (less than 25%).
All of those projects involved subsidies, which came from either the
Federal Government, or the State, or from Foundations or Private
Industry (mostly government money). I do not believe they would have
been done if we had waited for the appropriate state bureaucracies to
do them. I do not believe they would have been done if subsidies went
directly to end-user institutions. School District 9 in the South
Bronx has no one who has ever applied to NSF for a grant. It is not a
hot bed of cutting edge research. It does however have students and
teachers who can benefit from being connected to the rest of the
Internet Community. Neither Columbia, nor City University, nor any
University I know of is particularly interested in School District 9.
PSI, which is interested in them as a customer, is not yet able to
subsidize their entry into the Internet.
So who is left with the job of extending and broadening the Internet?
By default it is the regionals. Not all have yet risen to the
challenge, but many are! The topic of K-12 connectivity is one of the
hottest ones in FARNET today!
Even if one can connect such "have-nots", the problem of supporting
them is still with us. Again this is why NYSERNET is trying to set up
an end-user services department. This, again, will not be funded by
either the public or private universities. So who should fund it? We
can wait for the end-users, the principals or superintendents with a
bit of vision to convince the school board or local education
bureaucracy that this is important. I think that approach will give us
connectivity by the year 2010, maybe!
We can say, this is a capitalist society and if you want something, pay
for it. But that is a good argument for removing all funding for the
Internet and reverting to the model, used by DOE, NASA and originally
DoD, of funding lines to researchers who are working on
mission-relevant research projects. What would the Internet be like in
that case? I think we would have a 1980 style ARPAnet, only with
bigger pipes for the few. By extension we can apply that model to the
post office and to local phone companies and electric companies as
well. I won't belabor the scenario, but I believe that the government
does have a responsibility in insuring equity, at least when it comes
to infrastructure use!
The Internet is becoming privatized. But I don't think it will stand
on its feet by 1992. I think we need to be sensitive to the problems
this transition is causing. To the danger of having only one or two
suppliers. As we move to the increasing privatization of the Internet
we try to hurry that process along .
But there is the danger of throwing out the baby with
the bath water and I see a lot of flaming which seems to be dedicated
to that end.
Lastly regarding big science and gigabit networking. In 1985, when
Bill Schrader, Ken King, Ken Wilson, Bob McCrory, and I first came up
with the idea of NYSERNET, we proposed starting off with a T1 network!
We were accused by all of the experts, NYTEL on the one hand and the
MFE folk, on the other of being crazy. Nobody needs T1! 9.6 to the
desk top is more than enough. Why do you need trunks larger than
56kb/s?
I agree that we don't have any obvious gigabit applications which are
running now. We didn't have any obvious T1 applications runing then!
However, if we don't move in the direction of gigabits now,
we won't have the network appropriately sized when we need it!
The words "big science" are now used almost exclusively in a pejorative
sense. But, at least to me, nobody has ever proven that Big Science is
bad science. On the contrary, most scientists will agree that good
science comes out of big science. What even the opponents of "Big
Science" generally want is a balance between funding individual
researchers and small projects and funding big projects. I agree we
need that balance. But throwing out all large projects doesn't give
you a balance.
We need to navigate between the Scylla of no funding or funding only
researchers or only end-user institutions and the Charybdis of funding
only one monolithic provider whose gaze is centered on big users and
gigabit networks. I believe we can so navigate.
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