[9130] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Myth of Declining Funding of NSFnet - A New Chapter
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Sat Dec 18 15:29:45 1993
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 12:28:21 PST
To: com-priv@psi.com
In view of the repeated assurance of late that a new era was coming and that NSF
on April 30 1994 would be variously getting out of NSFnet funding or out of the
paying for the interenet business did anyone notice the "cute" way that the
Chronicle handled the blurb on $15 million for the sole source but otherwise
commercially available at a fraction-of-the-price MERIT/ANS backbone?
Something like the NSF will now have another year to figure the best way to do
its ramp down in expenditures. Preserve the myth at what ever the cost.
I am trying to put together some budget figures from 1990 through 1994 that will
be harder for the "big" press to ignore. Meanwhile some straws in the wind: in
1991 the NSF was stating $10 million a year for MERIT ANS backbone service. By
January 1993 the figures had gone UP to slightly more than $12 million a year,
and now from May 1 1994 to april 30 1995 the figures can go higher still....to
as much as $15,000,000 for months 79 through 90 of the 60 month cooperative
agreement or 1.25 million a month. I thought the cost of t-3 bit pipes was goin
down somewhat. Strange that NSF over 4 years would increase the unsolicited T-3
payments to MERIT/ANS by 50%? Any wonder that PSI and UUnet who started out
with 10% of the capitalization of ANS are a bit irked at the continued expansion
of the use of research monies to buy what are now commodity of the shelf
networking services?
Does anyone have the NSFnet and DNCRI allocations and total expenditures for
FY91, FY 92, FY 93 and the FY 94 allocation? If some please send them to me or
tell me how I can get them. I'll use FOIA if need be but I would think it ought
not to be necessary for this.
