[8616] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: CIX COnnectivity
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dick St.Peters)
Fri Nov 26 15:04:19 1993
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 93 14:52:24 EST
From: stpeters@spare-parts.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
To: karl@mcs.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Reply-To: <stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com>
> Thus, their recent announcement gives their <attachment> customers (ie: end
> user organizations) CIX connectivity -- but does NOT give their resale
> customer customers (can you parse that :-) CIX connectivity. The gateway
> customer networks <themselves> get CIX connectivity out of this.
>
> Where it gets blurry is for those who sell, say, SLIP access. Is a SLIP
> customer on the ANS Gateway customer's network number supposed to get
> routed or not?
Karl, thank you for saying this. You have homed in on the big problem
with the CIX - that blurryness - very nicely. My only complaint would
be that your one example doesn't really illustrate the magnitude of the
problem, so I'll offer a couple more.
Suppose I organize a local healthcare information coop, a group of
physicians, pharmacies, clinics, hospitals, ambulance services,
homecare providers, etc. We set up an online medical library and other
online services for our group. We approach several providers for a
group rate for our hundreds of connections. For concreteness, let's
suppose we get the best rate from AlterNet, so we go with them. Our
purpose is to provide network services to our group, but a side effect
is to put all our sites on the Internet. Are we a network that must
join the CIX ?
Another side effect is that if some of our sites already have
connections from PSI, they can give those up and replace them with our
bulk-rate AlterNet connections. Do we risk having PSI raise objection
within the CIX and having us declared a network ?
Suppose some of the hospitals have already networked to the physicians
that practice there, by leasing lines from the telco, without
connecting to the Internet. The hospitals charge physicians[*] for
some services they provide via these networks, so they want to keep
them in place. So we just have AlterNet connect the hospital
head-end. Are we now several networks that must each join the CIX ?
Along the same lines as the healthcare coop, suppose I see a business
opportunity in providing online services to local businesses, but I
have the same problem: many of them aren't online yet. I face the same
"am I a network?" issues if I include putting my customers online as
an optional part of my offering.
--
Dick St.Peters
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
[*] It is considered criminal fraud for a hospital not to charge
physicians for the use of computer services it provides.
