Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!mit-eddie!ll-xn!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU!VALDIS
From: VALDIS@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU (Valdis Kletnieks)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: My two cents about charge schemes on the Arpanet
Message-ID: <8804260753.AA23692@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 25 Apr 88 21:36:52 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 44

Uh.. OK. I *enjoy* all this theoredical chit-chat about passing moneygrams
and how to place a collect VC call over TCP and all the rest.
     
Now I have an interesting question motivated from self-interest:
     
We here at Clarkson have two links into the Internet - one via Nysernet
and one via Milnet (which we'll ignore for right now).
     
Now - my users just say 'telnet some.bogon.host.domain' and boom they're
there.  Now, that connection might be via Nysernet only - which requires
no billing.  Or it may be nysernet+nsfnet.  Or maybe
nysernet+arpanet+suranet.  The point is that now not only do the bean
counters have to keep track of the usage on the internet core, but the
gateways must also do bill-back for the people behind them.
     
I know that my users will freak if we suddenly restrict them to 'free
call' sites only.  Especially if gateways being up/down make day-to-day
differences.  (Huh?  Why did I get billed for this telnet session to
BNL?  It always uses Nysernet.  Sorry Charlie, that day a router was
down at Cornell and it went via MilNet).
     
I know my finance department is going to freak trying to do the
bill-back.  Sites that ARE on billable nets are going to want to dun us
for our packets.  (Heck, if I was the gate from Clarkson to MIT, *I*
wouldn't swallow the charges for a Clarkson user FTP'ing in X11R2 or GNU
Emacs or.....) Of course, this leaves all the gates billinging all the
nets.  With 400 or so nets reachable, and I don't know HOW many gates,
it's gonna become a zoo really fast...  (Hmm.  We got a bill from 3
gateways at Cornell to 5 users, and another from someplace in
Pittsburgh, and this place in Saskechewan wants its $1.25 for the 15
packets from Bozoville and.....)
     
I guess the bottom line is that it won't fly unless the ENTIRE Internet goes
with the same scheme, even those regional nets that don't otherwise CARE.
     
Well, that's enough rambling on a heavy-duty mailing list.  Hmm. Am I gonna
get a bill for this? :-)
     
                                   Valdis Kletnieks
                                   Systems Programmer
                                   Clarkson University
     
P.S. Standard disclaimers apply.  I'm just rambling on my own time.
As such, the people I answer to don't even know I mailed this yet....