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COOK Report Predicts Winners of NSFnet Solicitation
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 16:21:49 -0500
Posted-Date: Wed, 9 Feb 1994 16:13:45 -0500 Date: Wed, 9 Feb 94 15:51:14 EST From: cook () pandora sf ca us In view of the meeting of the National Science Board that begins tomorrow, it seems appropriate to share with com-priv what the COOK Report sent to subscribers on January 30. Our article follows: _____________ MCI AND ANS WILL WIN VBNS DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE BY NSFNET DIRECTOR WOLFF - WE PREDICT WHO WINS VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF NSF 93-52 NSF SPREADS THE PRIZES WIDELY BUT INTER-REGIONAL CONNECTIVITY COMPONENT LOOKS LIKE CAN OF WORMS We believe that we have been able to piece together with a great deal of certainty the identities of the winners of at least the first two components of NSF Solicitation 93-52. Of course the awards won't become official until the National Science Board ratifies Steve Wolff's decision at its February 10 - 11, 1994 meeting. Herewith the prize winners: 1. The very high speed backbone: MCI with ANS as subcontractor. 2. The Network Access Points: New York City - Sprint Chicago - Ameritech and Bellcore Washington DC - Metropolitan Fiber Systems California - BARRnet & PacBell 3. Inter-regional Connectivity We hear from one very well placed source that CoREN will be the recipient of the inter-regional connectivity award. The question of greatest interest is who the transport provider for CoREN will be. We strongly suspect it will be MCI because MCI has been the CoREN partner from the inception. (We wrote about CoREN as long ago as May of 1992.) While we have heard that MCI has failed to give CoREN a price on ATM connectivity, we believe that the most rational scenario is for MCI to emerge as the CoREN service provider. When one stops and thinks about the understandable concerns of the NSF that there be a stable transition for the network the advantage of having MCI as the transport level provider of inter-regional connectivity for the largest mid-levels are obvious.. Under this scenario, while it will undergo a metamorphosis, the current ANS backbone could survive. On February 3 ANS is expected to move its network operations center into new Ann Arbor headquarters provided by Northern Telecom. The core nodes in the network collocated in MCI POPs on its national backbone will not have to change. Conversations inside ANS reveal that most ANS NOC staffers believe they will soon be offered jobs by MCI. If MCI and CoREN stay together, the mid-levels will have used this part of the solicitation to execute a take over of the ANS backbone and squeeze ANS out of the picture just as they believe that ANS intended to squeeze them out earlier. While that would seem to be the most rational scenario, it is likely too much to expect rationality given the checkered history of NSF 93-52 We have heard an opposing view that suggests the current ANS backbone is unlikely to become CoREN. Since CoREN is to be ATM based the routers will therefore have to be different. It also emphasizes a recent falling out between CoREN and MCI apparently based on MCI's alleged unwillingness to give credible ATM delivery dates and pricing to CoREN. This fact and the fact that only about half the major mid-levels joined CoREN will ensure that there will be a lot of disruption. When you combine CoREN's insistence on starting with ATM with the fact that most of the rest of the mid-levels are being funded to "do their own thing," a smooth transition is unlikely. We think this latter scenario is the more credible and, if accurate, could well lead to a third extension for the current incumbents. 4. The routing authority may go to MERIT which we know did put in a bid for it. If it did, all parties would maintain the convenience of continued collocation in Ann Arbor. We emphasize that this is only as guess since we concentrated our efforts in learning about the other parts of the proposal. MCI as an Astute Strategist Lets go back to the vBNS. While IBM thought it was playing for big stakes in the original Merit Cooperative Agreement, MCI emerges as the hands down winner. MCI kept well in the shadows during all the controversies that surrounded ANS. It now stands ready to pick up the pieces. As prime bidder on the vBNS it is in a position to call the shots. Vint Cerf who is one of the most respected and trusted senior founders of the Internet has returned to the MCI fold. Vint will quite clearly be in charge of making things work. In contrast to Al Weis, Cerf will bring his technical expertise in the network technology and his familiarity with the internet culture. All these are characteristics that will make the NSF happy and help take the heat off of an otherwise controversial solicitation. The new arrangement will very likely shunt ANS off into the role with NT as a developer of routing and switching capability. With MCI in the driverUs seat we would also hope that other switching hardware would also be used. The players now seem so sure of the direction of the awards that they are changing employers. In addition to Cerf moving from CNRI to MCI in early January, on January 18 ANS lost another vice president. Phill Gross, the Chair of IETF who had worked for Cerf at CNRI before going to ANS in early 1991 moved back to MCI where he will again work on network architecture under Cerf. (We NOW have been told that Gross will not report to Cerf.) We are told that Gross took most of his staff with him to MCI. One way to solve the problem of ANS as "enfant terrible" of the Internet is to relegate it to a small and harmless corner of the sandbox. What About Sprint and AT&T? We have been told as early as last September that AT&T bid zero dollars for providing an OC3 vBNS. We have heard this since then from five different people. Why did AT&T not win? We have been told that its proposal lacked technical credibility. Perhaps. We are not equipped to judge. Of course nothing helps add to credibility like being in charge of the present service. Of course we have also been told that MCI added an option to expand to OC12 before the end of the cooperative agreement. Nothing like the advantages of being there first! We are less certain why Sprint lost out. Perhaps DOE's continued desire to award them the ESnet contract weighed against them? Again they were not in that critical driver's seat. Among those in the know the view is that they were awarded the New York City NAP as a consolation prize. The NSF seems to have taken care to spread the spoils as widely as possible. Thus Bellcore and Ameritech representing the RBOCs get the Chicago NAP. While we hear from two sources that BARRnet gets the California NAP, one other source whose judgment we respect refutes this claim. A fourth source stated it would go to a combination of BARRnet and PacBell. How will all this shake out? While it is possible to imagine a worse outcome, we will reserve judgment until the details are known. Certainly there is as much "pork" here as there is technology development. An OC3 ATM backbone for the supercomputer centers could be designed in such away as either to minimally advance or radically advance the state of the art. With Vint Cerf's reputation riding on this line we will hope for the best. Of course why we need to install real time capability for a Cray in California to crunch the same problem as a Cray in New York is much less clear. Though costly these machines are much more common than they were a few years ago. In the opinion of some it is also much more cost effective to link them on the same LAN or MAN. _______________________________________________________________ Gordon Cook, Editor Publisher: COOK Report on Internet -> NREN 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 cook () path net (609) 882-2572 Subscriptions: $85 individual; $175 non profit; $500 corporate site license _______________________________________________________________
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