[711] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Cost Of TCP/IP Dialup Connections
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Wolff)
Fri May 17 09:51:05 1991
To: well!taylorw@apple.com (Taylor Walsh)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Fri, 17 May 91 09:44:06 EDT
From: Stephen Wolff <steve@cise.nsf.gov>
> But to what extent are university administrations fully aware of
> the use of networks for their communities? Are there conversations
> underway now, for instance, among university budgeteers (not in
> the academic or administrative computing departments) evaluating
> what networking investments mean to the institution as a whole?
>
> What is the sense at the highest budgetary levels, and/or the
> highest departmental levels, that: a) networking is needed, and
> that b) it should remain a service provided by the university
> to its community, like showers in the gym?
EDUCOM's done a great job of bringing university administrators at the
highest levels into the fold. (Many but not, I grant you, all) scholars and
educators know themselves what the advantages of the (external) network are.
So, as is often true, middle management is the last to know and finds out by
being squoze both from above and from below.
> I am sure that some institutions have looked this in the eye
> and have torn up their campuses to lay fiber as a result,
> but that investment is meant for community-wide networking.
> What about the external networking, which in financial terms
> get down to links and the speed of those links and how many
> linkers are going to have access to them?
Anybody who's "torn up their campus(es) to lay fiber" can take the cost of a
T1 connection to a local Internet supplier out of petty cash!
-s
