[733] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Let 100 Backbones Bloom & Commercial Use
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Wolff)
Fri May 24 09:51:15 1991
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Fri, 24 May 91 08:54:27 EDT
From: Stephen Wolff <steve@cise.nsf.gov>
> <<MESSAGE from>> Gordon Cook 23-MAY-91 21:40
> cook@tmn
> To Sean Donelan:
>
> If what i am hearing from several sources turns out to be true all the
> bugaboos about commercial use traffic may soon be history! this I would
> imagine would be good for everyone.
EXACTLY! That's what we've been working towards all along. Glad you've
got the idea.
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> 2. The NSF buys services from that commercial subsidiary of ANS. By doing
> so the gov't is no longer in the business of running or subsidizing a
> backbone.
Oops! NO! NSF has a Cooperative Agreement with Merit that doesn't expire
until November '92, so NOTHING changes until then. After then, NSF **MAY**
* make a single award to a Backbone-service-provider after a standard
NSF competition - i.e., "recompete the Backbone"; ANS might win, but
so might Sprint. Or AT&T teaming with somebody, or PSI, or...
I regard this option as very unlikely to be chosen.
or
* allow those who need Backbone services to compete for the pot of
money NSF now puts into the Backbone via Merit, and spend the money
with any eligible provider ("eligible" at minimum means participating
in CIX/FIX - i.e., agreeing to carry competitors' traffic).
In either option, "acceptable use" is moot, though it's somewhat less clear
in the former.
In a variant of the latter option, NSF awards "yellow stamps" which eligible
providers, having received them from Backbone users, can present to NSF for
conversion to real money; with this mechanism, NSF not only ensures that the
awardees don't use the award for anything but Backbone services, but also, by
having different conversion rates (yellow stamps-->$$) for different
providers, can temporarily "level the playing field" before later allowing
the full force of the free market to weed out uncompetitive suppliers.
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> 4. Everyone is happy?
Dream on. There is a corollary to Jon Postel's famous folk theorem "In any
large system there is ALWAYS something broken," which says "In any large
clientele there is ALWAYS someone unhappy."
-s
