[719] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet

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Let 100 Backbones Bloom!

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.e)
Fri May 17 22:11:49 1991

Date: Fri, 17 May 91 21:10:30 CDT
From: francis%zaphod@gargoyle.uchicago.edu
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: (stev knowles's message of Fri, 17 May 91 10:32:07 -0400 <9105171432.AA19914@ftp.com>


stev@ftp.com  (stev knowles) writes:

>most of the contracts i have seen do not allow the connected sites to pass
>"transit" packets into their systems without permission. if they could get
>permission, i would assume the regionals would do it themselves, to avoid
>having to deal with support calls abotu someone elses link going down.

What, you mean the regionals *can't* act as relays? That seems
odd--what if the backbone goes down or something?

I suppose I can see not wanting them to take that on permanently--it'd
be a waste of resources, since we do have the backbone--but not able
at all seems a bit odd...

Anyway, I think we were talking about privitization of the backbone,
which would be a different story.  If the Net were fragmented at the
backbone level, there'd be money for somebody in relaying traffic;
there might be regulations against it, but they'd probably come up
with something around it.  (Laws against relatively easy profits are
about as reliable as laws against high tide.  :-)

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| Francis Stracke	       | My opinions are my own.  I don't steal them.|
| Department of Mathematics    |=============================================|
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