[8923] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
In "honor" of Ittai as an ANS spokesman
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Sun Dec 12 21:15:44 1993
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1993 02:15:06 GMT
To: com-priv@psi.com
Well once again we have Ittai's insinuation craftily inserted into
this discussion in a way designed to ricochet things into a
direction with which his employer ANS is more comfortable.
Ittai: I will chime more than once about the 18 million when it is
an increase from current levels and will soon be operative in the
face of assertions from the press that NSF spending is DECLINING.
You Ittai bring mention of comparitive *value* to an entirely
different program into the discussion in the hope that some
readers might not see that you are are trying to deflect the
discussion away from the analysis that I have engaged in.
If we want to discuss *value* Ittai, then lets go back to the great
value ANS delivered in the T-3 network between Jan 1991 and
April 1992 when it was being paid for something that didn't
work. Or if you want to dicuss VALUE why don't you tell us why
the ANSnet backbone crashed in the early hours of yesterday
(Saturday) and was down until yesterday afternoon? And
explain the precautions ANS is taking so it won't happen again?
And speaking of value why did you blame the NSF (which you
now praise) for a policy routing change when Perot Data Systems
lost connectivity to a client in Germany for quite a few days just
a year ago? This when the problem for Perot was apparently
caused by a change in the way *YOU* at ANS labeled packets that
caused them to be filtered when they arrived at ESnet's router
attached to its transatlantic link?
Other's feel as I do but can't speak out. Here Ittai is the comment
of a prominent member of the internet community who recently
responded to my querry about full average cost of connections
where I wondered whether ANS had been meeting that
requirment. Given ANS's *HIGH* prices, he said that he though
you had been meeting that obligation. Then he continued:
"To be honest Gordon I think you are on the wrong track with
ANS. I think they are a woefully mismanaged company which
doesn't 'know what it wants to be when it grows up' . They had
all the opportunities to walk away with the Internet access
market and they blew them to companies such as PSI or UUnet,
which didn't have 10% of their capitilization. The scandal, if
there is one, is why did MCI, IBM and now Northern put money
into this venture? If it was a charitible contribution, how did
they come to pick this particular charity?" [Note: The author is
*NOT* an officer or employee of either PSI or UUnet.]
Do you really think that I stay on this subject simply for self
promotion? As an independent journalist I could promote myself
a lot easier than this. Many of your critics like the one above
can't risk having their names attached because of their positions
in the network world. I am on this because of the public interest
issues involved and because someone needs to be a watchdog
since the mainstream press hasn't caught on. Or as the old saying
goes, while its a contentious job, <smile> somebody's gotta do it.
