Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrpcd!wright!jsloan
From: jsloan@wright.EDU (John Sloan)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: bad press for NSFNET
Message-ID: <843@wright.EDU>
Date: 22 Apr 88 11:09:20 GMT
References: <21851@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Organization: Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435
Lines: 27

Apart from the Datacomm article, all the wide area networks, including
NSFNET, got a lot of bad, or at least interesting, press in the
_The_Chronicle_of_Higher_Education_, 6 April 1988, A11.

The gist of the article is that the WANS (NSFNET, ARPANET and BITNET are
specifically mentioned) are victims of their own success, and that they
don't have the financial resources (and all that implies: staff,
equipment, etc.) to support the exploding growth in their use. It
mentions too the cost of local (campus-wide) area networking, and
that many universities are finding it expensive to support, also in part
because of the growth in usage.

The _Chronicle_ is a trade rag for the education industry. University
administrators read it routinely. The thing that concerns me is that
they'll only see the bottom line, not the fact that most of these
problems are occurring because the networks are immensely popular.

I just co-wrote a proposal for a more extensive campus network, and this
article came out right when we fielded the proposal to the
administration. Great. In times when university administrators are more
bean-counters than educators (and, admittedly, perhaps necessarily so)
this is probably going to make selling networking more difficult.

-- 
John Sloan, The SPOTS Group    Wright State University Research Building
CSNET: jsloan@SPOTS.Wright.Edu  3171 Research Blvd., Kettering, OH 45420
UUCP: ...!cbosgd!wright!jsloan          +1-513-259-1384  +1-513-873-2491
Logical Disclaimer: belong(opinions,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail.