[9321] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
NSF AUP and non-US R&E users
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Wed Dec 29 05:16:32 1993
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 4:14:13 -0600 (CST)
From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@sdg.dra.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
>>> And to make things even more interesting, The University of York,
>>> Heslington York, UK, just signed up for packet driver support.
>>> I think you'd agree that they're a "good" non-profit user. But
>>> they're not allowed to use the NSF backbone either.
>>
>> The University of York uses NSFNET Backbone Services consistent with
>> paragraph (2) of the AUP.
>
>I hate to contradict you, since you of all people should know what
>the AUP says and what it means, but it seems to me that it's the US
>R&E community that gets to use the NSFNET Backbone Services to
>communicate with foreign R&E, not US companies.
I had this same question prior to the 1992 revision of the NSFNET AUP.
At the time it involved Canadian universities using the NSFNET backbone
to access for-pay services at DataResearch. In various private and
public communication between myself, NSF and Canadian network policy
makers it became clear that NSF's intent was to enhance access for U.S. R&E
users to Canadian resources (commercial and R&E), and vice versa for
Canadian policy makers. So on a reciprocal basis, each network permits
traffic with the other to enhance the overall usefulness of the network
to their respective R&E communities.
I believe the 1992 NSFNET AUP revision, including paragraph (2), reflects
that intent. So Non-US R&E users can use the NSFNET Backbone Service to
communicate with US companies, as long as US R&E users are given
reciprocal access to companies in the other country. If the UK wasn't
permitting US R&E users access to services in the UK, then it might
be a violation. But I assume the UK networks are allowing US R&E
traffic to traverse their networks, and likewise the University of
York's traffic to the US company would be permitted to use the NSFNET
Backbone Services.
Anyone have a copy of the the UK networks' policies in regard to US R&E
users?
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
