[8682] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The Merit IBM Alliance Moves to Japan
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Hughes)
Tue Nov 30 15:35:19 1993
From: dave@oldcolo.com (Dave Hughes)
To: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 13:31:30 -0700 (MST)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com (compriv)
In-Reply-To: <CHB5zD.Er8@pandora.sf.ca.us> from "Gordon Cook" at Nov 30, 93 02:09:12 pm
Vince Gebes, in commenting about Japanese Internetting said
>Not only the Japanese press but also business here is
>showing ever-increasing interest. As you may know, three
>companies have recently started offering commercial
>IP connection services, including AT&T Jens (Spin service),
>InterCon International, and Internet Initiative (IIJ).
>AT&T Jens and InterCon International co-sponsored a
>free symposium yesterday (Nov 29) dealing with commercial
>Internet connection, featuring presentations by Susan
>Estrada of Aldea Communications, Japanese "Internet
>Samurai" Jun Murai, Dr. Shigeki Gotoh of NTT, and Dr.
>Haruhisa Ishida of Tokyo University.
Well, things are not as they seem with this IIJ bunch, whom some call, as
Cook notes, the "Great Pretender." My sources - and I am directly *on* the
first general, dial up, anyone-can-have-an-account commercial Internet
service, TWICS, via InterCon International, via telnet - report that IIJ is
authorized, as of now, ONLY to provide e-mail services and not full IP
services. That may change, (but licencing is a very political, as well as
costly and time consuming act in Japan) but there has been a lot of horn
blowing of and by IIJ (here in compriv once I believe), and I thought the
record should be corrected. Not only InterCon as the link, but also little
TWICS a neat commercial service whose founder was Jeff Shapard (read about
him in Rheingold's 'Virtual Communities' book) I have been on for years,
were the first, and really operate. So be careful who you contract with in
Japan, compriver's. For starters whats IIJ's IP number? TWICS is
192.135.222.3 - with interesting skulldudgery having gone on in getting
their IP name into the DDN.
And at that 'conference' yesterday in Japan, the Professor from Toyko
University (Ishihda), who should have known better, managed to name IIJ
(which is not) and SPIN (which is, now) as 'the' commercial Internet
providers while IIKK (InterCon) which IS a provider, was not mentioned.
Fortunately, Mr. Murai, the much respected 'Godfather of Japan Internet'
corrected the record before the hundreds present.
So between mis-information, Internet Wars reported in Nikki, and the Asian
Times, mailed razor-blades, PTT bureaucracy, cozy relationships at higher
levels, Japan's startup in Internetting is already beginning to resemble
the US 'commercialization' wars of a couple years ago.
Lets just call it 'jp ip de ja vu.'
