[8520] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ANS and the CIX
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Miles R Fidelman)
Sun Nov 21 17:12:54 1993
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1993 17:00:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Miles R Fidelman <fidelman@civicnet.org>
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <1844.753744308@apple.com>
A modest proposal (with brickbat shield turned on):
All of the recent discussion and events re. ANS and the CIX point out the
dangers of placing key crossroads of the world's information
infrastructure in hands of a research funding agency and private players.
While the CIX has, to my mind, a very positive set of connection rules -
to which ANS has finally signed up, once the NAP contracts are awarded
the situation will change drastically. We will go from the CIX policy of
anyone who interconnects must exchange packets on a settlement-free basis
to a policy of anyone can connect but the terms of packet exchange will
be up to individual agreements between network operators. Recent events
have shown the dangers of such a policy.
Since NSF (rightly) states that it is not in the regulatory business, it
seems that placing the NAPs under the control of NSF and NAP awardees
creates a potentially net-destroying situation.
So - perhaps its time to think about placing the NAPs under the
jurisdiction of an agency that DOES see itself as a regulatory agency,
and cares about such issues about guaranteed interconnection, rules that
establish a level playing field, common carriage, and the like -- namely
the FCC. This would have a secondary effect of getting the FCC invested
in the Internet, and thinking about such issues as how to shape local
loop regulation to be supportive of Internet access for smaller users.
[note: we would, of course, have to spend a lot of time educating the FCC
if we want them to do things reasonably correctly]
Ok folks, I'm waiting for those flames, brickbats, and pieces of rotten
fruit to come my way :) (though, I gave a talk at CNI yesterday to about
60 people, and when I expressesed these views I was positively shocked
that only one person in the room reacted negatively)
Miles
**************************************************************************
Miles R. Fidelman mfidelman@civicnet.org
Executive Director 91 Baldwin St. Charlestown MA 02129
The Center for Civic Networking 617-241-9205 fax: 617-241-5064
Check out our gopher server:
CCN - The Center for Civic Networking
on the list of all gopher servers in the world.
Information Infrastructure: Cyberspace is Civic Space
Public Spaces for the 21st Century
**************************************************************************
