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From: gnu@toad.com
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Subject: "Industry forns NSFnet support group"
Message-ID: <9009251725.AA06628@hop.toad.com>
Date: 25 Sep 90 17:25:59 GMT
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EE Times, Sept 24 1990, p. 28.  My comments are [indented].

		"Industry forms NSFnet support group"
			by Brian Robinson

Washington - The government's High Performance Computing Program, which
has yet to receive any formal funding, got a boost from industry last
week.  Three companies that have headed industry's effort in the
development of NSFnet are sponsoring a new organization that will
provide support for any network built as a part of the program.

The new, not-for-profit company, Advanced Network and Services, Inc (ANS)
will manage NSFnet under contract to current network manager Merit
Inc.  IBM Corp and MCI Communications Corp., which have worked with
Merit for several years to refit the NSFnet, will provide cash and R&D
for the venture.

ANS's first job will be to connect more academic, industrial and
government institutions to NSFnet, which is being boosted from a speed
of 1.5Mbits/second to a T3 performance of 45 Mbits/s.  Longer term,
the company would provide support for the National Research and
Education Network.  A major focus of the computing program, the NREN
is intended to link thousands of research and academic centers
nationwide.  NSFnet will be the backbone for the NREN.

The government first proposed its $1.9 billion plan for the High
Performance Computing Program late last year.  The program is an
ambitious attempt to build a coherent, nationwide infrastructure that
will provide industry, government and academic participants with
access to high-performance computing facilities.  A similar program
has been proposed in Congress, and legislative action on that
proposal is expected sometime next year.

	[When will "industry" actually get to participate in this
	 network?  It sure can't now...]

Even with the big boost in bandwidth -- from just 56 kbits/s two years
ago -- the current increase in demand threatens to overwhelm NSFnet,
said Allan Weis, president and chief executive of ANS and a former
executive of IBM.  In the last year alone, the number of sites
connected to the network has tripled, and user traffic has increased
by more than 500 percent.

	[If I gave away free bandwidth to anyone unscrupulous
	enough to break the rules, kept upgrading when people took
	advantage of me, and never policed them, my network
	traffic would be increasing exponentially, too.]

ANS focus

ANS will focus on managing that growth.  "The success of ANS will also
expand the base of financial support for the evolving financial
network" [sic], said Weis.

MCI and IBM will both donate $5 million over three years, and fees
will also be collected from users.  All of that funding will be
reinvested in network development, freeing up other funds to sign on
needier organizations that otherwise could not afford to get on NSFnet.

	[Total of $3.3M/year doesn't even come close to the cost
	of running the network...especially at T3.  That will just about
	pay for office space and salaries for MCI and IBM "ex-executives"
	who will run ANS.  The actual network funding come out of the
	taxpayers' pockets, as usual.  The "needier organizations" stuff
	is designed to distract your attention from this.]

While neither IBM nor MCI will derive revenue from ANS, both see it as
an opportunity to develop and test new communications technologies in
a real-world setting.  The two companies will be able to license any
new techologies ANS develops.

	[Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon" comes to mind.  Tycoon
	D. D. Harriman gets a United Nations charter for a nonprofit
	company to explore the Moon.  But that nonprofit is controlled 
	by him, and it subcontracts everything to his "real companies with
	hair on their chests", who make significant profits.  In this
	case, there are two fake nonprofits shielding the for-profits
	(Merit and ANS).  At least in Heinlein's case, the whole thing
	is funded by private owners, rather than by robbing the taxpayers.]

IBM sees its participation as an important means for testing new
techniques and configurations of networking hardware and software.  It
already supplies hardware and software for NSFnet's backbone switching
and routing systems.

MCI, meanwhile, supplies the 1.5-Mbit/s T1 network through which
NSFnet now operates, and officials expect ANS to be a test bed for
work on ISDN and braodband Synchronous Optical Networks (Sonet).  MCI
recently tested a 2.4 Gbit/s Sonet system, and the company expects
that technology to be the basis for a future, multi-gigabit NREN based
om optical fibers. 

	[Who will supply the T3 links?  MCI?  I find this a curious omission.]

Nonetheless, officials stressed that the company will be only a small part
of the full High Performance Computing Program.  It will not have the
resources to implement a full NREN, which will require a much broader
effort from industry, government and academia.

	[In other words, IBM and MCI aren't interested in FUNDING
	the development of a nationwide high speed commercial network.
	They just want to come in later and cherry-pick, managing the
	resulting for-profit network, after it's been built "non-profit"
	and paid for by tax money.]

Even so, the company may have a head start in any upcoming competition
for future management of NSFnet and, ultimately, of the NREN.

	[Tell me about it...]

		-- end of news story --