[545] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ANS Acceptable Use Policy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Edward Vielmetti)
Fri Apr 5 03:56:13 1991
To: Stephen Wolff <steve@cise.nsf.gov>
Cc: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger), com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 03 Apr 91 11:03:59 -0500.
Date: Wed, 03 Apr 91 12:41:51 EST
From: Edward Vielmetti <emv@ox.com>
> I wish someone would expain to me (a) just what ANS' "effective monopoly
> power" is, and (b) who is supposed to have granted it to them.
as I understand it,
- the nsfnet backbone is the backbone; the internet architects have
decided through policy and funding powers to route as much traffic
through it as possible. so policy restrictions placed on nsfnet
backbone traffic must be heeded by all, and there is no effective
means to bypass them at this time. that's "monopoly".
- ANS now subcontracts for the management of this backbone, a contract
which was given to them by Merit, MCI, and IBM. that's who gave it
to them. they appear to have changed the rules for this backbone
from the formalist NSFnet rules to their own moralist set.
ANS have not shown themselves at this point to be very good internet
citizens; I don't see from them any sort of positive contributions to
the net above and beyond what their contracts specify that they do.
(I'm comparing them at this point with other organizations and the
projects that they fund, like BBN's release of dial-up slip, or PSI's
development of ISODE and SNMP, or Alternet/UUNET's contributions to
C News development). They snuck in this very restrictive "don't offend
anyone" policy without any public accounting for it, and have as yet
not provided a credible clarification on what the intent is on enforcement.
And worst of all they seem to have a terminal inability to post anything
for themselves to any kind of public mailing list or newsgroup.
--
Msen Edward Vielmetti
/|--- moderator, comp.archives
emv@msen.com
"With all of the attention and publicity focused on gigabit networks,
not much notice has been given to small and largely unfunded research
efforts which are studying innovative approaches for dealing with
technical issues within the constraints of economic science."
RFC 1216
