[8769] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
TIME magazine article spreads NSFnet MYTH
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Sat Dec 4 00:23:19 1993
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1993 05:22:33 GMT
To: com-priv@psi.com
Philip Elmer Dewitt writes in TIME magazine:
"The Internet, however, will have to go through some radical changes
before it can join the world of commerce. Subsidized for so long by the Federal
Government, its culture is not geared to normal business activities." . . . "The
change has already begun. NSF's contribution now represents about 10% of the
total cost of the network, and the agency is scheduled *to start phasing **out**
its support next April,* removing at the same time what few restrictions still
remain against commercial activity."
Why does the mainstream press *buy* this propaganda?
At the beginning of 1990 NSF was spending almost 3 million a year on backbone
infrastructure.
In January 1991 that escalated to 10 million a year.
By the end of April of 1993 the amount had increased to over 12 million a year.
(My source? NSF monthly invoices from Merit obtained by FOIA.)
Come May 1 1994, by the NSF's own figures the amount is expected to run $18
million a year. (Source: NSF's own words in the solicitation.)
Yet TIME says:
"the agency is scheduled *to start phasing **out** its support next April* "
Some may saw that as the network grows, the percentage spent by the NSF may
account for a *smaller* amount of the over all total. Perhaps, but saying it is
*PHASING out* its support when it is **increasing it substantially** on almost a
yearly basis is MISLEADING.
Next point: I haven't met a soul who expects the changover to the 18 million a
year total of four awards to take place on May 1, 1994. We will in all
probability have another extension for merit of 6 months to a year. I was told
yesterday by the NSF foia officer that I could expect an answer to my November
15th FOIA request for this data (will there be an extension and if so how long)
next week.
So the current arrangement is likely to extend through most or ALL of next year
*unchanged.* Where is the phasing out there?? And when it finally goes into
effect the total annual NSF spending goes ***UP*** by 50%!
True the backbone that we know goes away..... only to be replaced by the $4
million a year interregional connectivity program run by (many people guess)
CoREN or something like it. So the mid-levels get their backbone ie internap
connectivity fully paid for *one more year* **after** the next extension ends.
Where is the phasing out there? Time says after April 30 94, its gonna begin.
What are we supposed to do? Play guessing games with its writers on WHEN?
Whenever it does begin it will probably not be for TWO years after the April
date that TIME gives us. And then it will partially paid for over the NEXT 3
years. While the NSF pays for VBNS, for NAPS, for the ROUTING AUTHORITY *and*
for INTER-regional connectivity! The NSF paid for edifice gets larger and more
complex and more costly while . . . .
a myth has been propagated by NSF and its boosters and blindly accepted by TIME
that the NSF is getting out of the network subsidy business. (phasing out its
support) Rubbish!
Is TIME magazine gonna come back and say (ignoring the facts enumerated here,)
that we were right, **at some point in the next five years** the NSF will
decrease its support for ONE part of the network program, and therefore we
should be excused from not having dug deeply enough to read the solicitation
ourselves and talk to people outside the NSF academic, university complex??
That we had no need to attempt to portray anything other than the "official" and
very simplistic view of things? Can we really expect no better from TIME??
Here's hoping the mainstream press will learn to DIG a bit deeper in 94!
