[723] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Let 100 Backbones Bloom!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Wed May 22 17:58:54 1991
Date: Wed, 22 May 1991 16:57:28 CDT
From: SEAN@dranet.dra.com (Sean Donelan)
To: com-priv@uu.psi.com
X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"com-priv@uu.psi.com"
> Question - under these conditions, since all the backbones are now
> privatized, have we buried the old bugaboo of acceptable (non-commercial)
> use policies?
No, you've just pushed off to a different place, and actually made the issue
even more difficult to solve.
When we connected to the Internet, the most important part was getting
NSF "approval." I suppose I could have tried for DCA, DOE, etc approval,
but since the FRICC policy says approval by one is as good as approval
by all, NSF would do. The policies of the various mid-level networks were
not part of the decision, because they all accept packets from NSF "connected"
networks. Without NSF approval, our connection would simply be yet another
private line between us and another university.
At one point I looked into "bypassing" the NSF restrictions by connecting to
each mid-level networks where we had customer's. The variations in
policies/contracts was more than we could handle. And they often had just as
restrictive policies as the NSF backbone. We haven't used the commercial IP
providers because they still have to impose the NSF restrictions on traffic
going to any NSF network. Since nearly 100% of our customers are on NSF
mid-levels, or DOE, or DCA sponsored networks, the fact that the IP backbone
is commercial doesn't help with the use policies.
I'd like a policy where we could connect to some "point" and announce our
intention that we will talk to anyone (which we will). If someone wanted to
talk to us, they would ask their routing authority to add a route to us. We
really don't like having to getting approval for "us" since we really want
to act as a "destination." I suppose in the current network set up this would
mean we would rent some space at the FIXs, or the CIX (your standard 2,000
mile "local" loop for us).
Of course even the commercial IP providers have some use policies that cause
us problems. We have access ports in public libraries that are anonymous,
this tends to cause major willies when we tell them we allow public users
on our network.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO 63132-1806
Domain: sean@dranet.dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
