[697] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Let 100 Backbones Bloom!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex McKenzie)
Thu May 16 09:09:27 1991
Date: Thu, 16 May 91 9:03:21 EDT
From: Alex McKenzie <mckenzie@BBN.COM>
To: tmn!cook@uunet.uu.net
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Gordon,
I don't think your scenario avoids the acceptable-use policy question at
all, it just moves it. True, the government no longer gets to set
acceptable use policy for the backbone(s). But since NSF is now giving
grants of taxpayers money to the mid-levels to pay the backbone fees,
then NSF must restrict the use of that money to purposes which the
taxpayers will find acceptable, and I think that means setting
acceptable use policies for the traffic the mid-levels submit to, and
accept from, the backbone(s).
Now if you carry your scenario one step further, and NSF gives grants
only to individual institutions, then the institution can decide whether
it can easily meet any "strings" that come along with the grant. We
might expect that the institutions might be primarily academic
institutions, but this need not be the case; NSF could give a networking
grant to, e.g., IBM so long as IBM maintained appropriate accountability
for its use of the grant money. Federal Acquisition Regulations already
cover this kind of thing. What you give up in this case, I think, is
much control on whether the backbones agree to interconnect. I
personally think that doesn't matter - interconnection, or lack thereof,
is just another differentiator at both the mid-level and backbone level
and the market will decide what's important. This _is_ privatization.
Regards,
Alex McKenzie
BBN Laboratories
