Re: National Science Board action [ Gordon asks some valid questions .. djf]

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: cook () path net (Gordon Cook)
Subject: Re: National Science Board action


Several questions here.


Next point:  why the wording of grant contract or other arrangment????
NSF has staunchly maintained that these are cooperative agreements.  Why
the waffling?


Next point: 10 million a year for a vBNS is an awesome price to pay MCI
compared to a zero dollar per year bid from AT&T.  Now I am told that
technical excellence NOT price is the determining factor.  Can it really
be that AT&T is a technology clutz in this area?  So much so that it
justified spending 50 million over 5 years?  Will AT&T protest?  If AT&T
doesn't protest, is such an action tantamount to their admission that
they just don't know their ATM technology and that if you are a big
corp you better buy from MCI?  I have heard an assertion that AT&T has
been promised some favors  to stay silent.  But take this with a grain of
salt cause so far I have been able to develop **absolutely NO
corroboration** of this hypothesis.


Next point:  TWO Routing arbitors???  TWO?  Why two?  20 million bucks
over five years.....for what????  I'd love to see these proposals.


Next point:  Why no announcement of NAPS?


Next point:  Why no announcement of inter-regional connectivity?


Two of the four components are announced here by Steve and already the
NSF is obligated to spend more in 5 years than it did in the 7.5 years
of the last NSFnet agreement.  While the NSF support for the OLD bacbone
MAY begin to disappear in 1997 NSF spending on the netwok is ramping up
- NOT down.


Wonder if we will hear from AT&T attorneys anytime soon?