[9891] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: bill text draft 2: Telecommunications Competition Act (fwd)u
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ittai Hershman)
Tue Jan 25 19:15:33 1994
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 94 19:09:31 EST
From: Ittai Hershman <ittai@ans.net>
To: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 25 Jan 1994 16:22:41 -0600 (CST)
I would <prefer> to use the CIX transit where possible, and the NSF transit
only where <necessary>. The routing tables may say otherwise, but that's
not my doing -- all I can do is announce the routes I have, and <ask> MERIT
to announce the routes to the PRDB for the NSF. The weights that MERIT
attaches to those routes has a large part in the "best cost" path that is
taken by the packets, does it not?
ANSNet policy routing supports primary, secondary and tertiary paths.
Technically, your network could be announced as 1:1957 (CIX-AS) 2:1800
3:1240 (Sprint AS's). Because of the way Internet routing works
(nothing to do with ANS, Merit or NSF, just the facts of IP routing)
this would mean that as long as connectivity were available via the
CIX, packets destined for your network would be routed via AS 1957.
However, because the CIX router can only be used to reach other CIX
member customer networks, this would mean you would be cutoff from a
large part of the Internet. And the way around that, of course, is to
not announce the CIX route at all, just as you are doing today.
And therein lie two problems:
1. The current CIX policy deters growth in the commercial Internet
2. All CIX members can bypass the connectivity restrictions imposed
by the CIX Association filtering gateway, by preferring the NSFNET
Backbone Service path, EXCEPT FOR ANS.
It is indeed ironic, that the organization established to grow the
commercial Internet and demonstrate that government funding is
unnecessary, is inadvertently increasing its members' dependence on
taxpayer subsidies.
That is, they don't try to "backdoor" the membership of the CIX. This
is a policy choice on their part, and one that I happen to agree with
fully.
Karl, If you are insinuating that ANS has chosen to violate CIX
policy, then you are dead wrong. As a CIX member we have signed a
membership agreement which we abide by. Prior to becoming a CIX
member in November, we had interconnected with the CIX under a
mutually signed Memorandum of Understanding. Hearsay on this list to
the contrary, ANS fully abided by the terms of that MOU and its
routing plan. (ref: ftp.ans.net:pub/info/historical/cix-mou-routing.ps).
If you have solid evidence to the contrary, feel free to discuss this
with the CIX Association.
-Ittai
