[821] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Commercial Interconnection-dinosaur in sheeps clothing or true player?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Martin Lee Schoffstall)
Sun Jun 9 20:45:02 1991
To: the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow <geoff@fernwood.mpk.ca.us>
Cc: mkapor@eff.org (Mitch Kapor), com-priv@uu.psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 09 Jun 91 14:43:48 MST."
Date: Sun, 09 Jun 91 20:39:02 -0400
From: "Martin Lee Schoffstall" <schoff@psi.com>
It depends on what "pony up" means to us all.
I believe that the CIX is a representation of many of the foundational
issues of the Internet, and is probably a mirror image of the FIX. These
foundational issues have been shared by retail providers of Internetworking
service throughout the 80's and into the 90's, through many revolutions.
One issue is "settlement" - or charging by use, they are not strictly
the same thing, but they are substantially intertwined.
ANS so far is a wholesaler, and a wholesaler that uses subcontractors,
that is its tradition. That tradition NATURALLY leads you into the
settlement and charge by use belief system. A belief system that even
the TELENET, INFONET, etc. are leaving after 20+ years practiciing the
belief system. Why? fundamentally because the market won't support it any
longer, but also because they can still survive because they are
retailers.
I, and other people have been through these arguments before, in the
early 80's. So lets take a look an incarnation of at least one part
of the two pieces - charge by use. The MILNET. Would anyone like to
describe the glowing successes that the charge by use has made of the
MILNET?
I have many stories of the above, but I'll state frankly that we're
seeing lots of conversion of MILNET's sites into the regionals, and
to PSI. Rick can speak to Alternet. Maybe more fundamentally is that
the organizations who should have joined AREN't and are going to the
alternative suppliers.
Marty
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The Litmus Test of whether ANS is a dinosaur in sheeps clothing (i.e. a
monopoly purveyor) or a true proponent of the Internet commercialization
market place will be determined by whether or not they pony up to and join
the CIX. Same for InfoLAN, Telenet, et al.
Geoff
