[8490] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Puzzled thoughts re ANS goals for CIX
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dick St.Peters)
Sat Nov 20 17:38:14 1993
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 17:34:21 EST
From: stpeters@spare-parts.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
To: com-priv@psi.com
Reply-To: <stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com>
Sigh ... having twice bungled sending this, once sending it to
"cor-priv" and then sending it so it looked like the whole thing was
a quote from John, I'm trying one last time to see if I can get it right.
> From: John Curran <jcurran@nic.near.net>
John,
> I actually feel that there are several organizations that are aware of
> what is going on, and are capable of providing a neutral description.
I have to admit I think you did a good job of being ANS-CIX neutral in
what you covered, but I'd still say you left out a lot: the whole AUP
squabble, differences of opinion about government subsidization, CITA
vs. CIX perspectives, levelness of the playing field, etc. ...
Also,
> ANS CO+RE has decided that its previous position (of not joining the CIX)
> was not longer worth pursuing, for reasons as yet not stated. The net
> result of ANS CO+RE joining will be a single commercial Internet, rather
> than the two distinct clouds that we had previously.
I'm not so sure we can yet say there's just one cloud. My bias as an
end user of networking is that the "commercial internet" includes all
our customers, including the universities.
>Careful. The CIX may not be able to exchange traffic with the _NSFNET_
> unless the NSFNET joins the CIX. To do otherwise would give
> the NSFNET a benefit which the CIX is charging its members for.
My view of the NFSNET is that it's a customer of ANS, a logical entity
riding atop that one big commercial Internet cloud. If I form a business
providing a service to a collection of sites, each of which buys its own
Internet connection, does that make me a network that has to join the
CIX ? Suppose GE Medical wanted to call its remote diagnosis service
ServiceNet for marketing reasons ... would the CIX penalize us for
creating hundreds of customers for CIX members because we have the
magic letters "net" in the name ? Suppose we lump the service into
the cost of the equipment, so *we* buy the connection wherever it goes,
and we contract with one vendor to provide all our connections. Do we
have to join the CIX ? Does it make a difference whether we contract
with ANS or AlterNet or NEARNet ? What's the difference between us
contracting for our service network and NSF contracting for its ?
Suppose we contract for our ServiceNet with vendor A, and some customers
have connections from vendor B. They no longer need the connection from
B. Does that make us a competitor of B, or are we just passing through
competition from A ? Suppose our customer already has a connection from
A. Presumably we get a bulk rate from A, and this customer no longer
needs an independent connection from A. Are we now a reseller of A in
competition with A ?
These questions are *not* just hypothetical. I know of - and in some
cases am involved in - ventures being formed now that will need to know
the answers. Some of the answers will affect whether some ventures are
undertaken ... affect how fast the commercial net grows.
Anybody who think ANS joining the CIX is the end of the problems is
suffering a serious delusion. That is little more than a cease fire
and exchange of prisoners on one front. There needs to be a peace
treaty, one that spells out clearly who is just a networking
"customer", who is a customer become networking "vendor", and when this
is a matter for negotiation between customer and vendor.
[My apologies to the net for failing to sign my next-to-last posting.
My deliver and include-signature buttons are side-by-side.]
--
Dick St.Peters
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
