re A Ridiculous Failure of Critical Infrastructure

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: stephen wolff <swolff () cisco com>
> Date: December 2, 2009 5:54:50 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] re  A Ridiculous Failure of Critical Infrastructure

> On Dec 2, 2009, at 13:47, Dave Farber wrote:
>
> > > In about the same time frame, NSF solicited bids for a very high  
> > > speed backbone network *service* (or vBNS), note the emphasis on  
> > > "service."  This was to be a 45 Mbps backbone service, which could  
> > > be implemented in such a way that the the purveyor could also sell  
> > > services to other customers. And, this was because NSF could not  
> > > afford to pay for its own 45 Mbps backbone.  But, the vBNS was not  
> > > for normal Internet traffic, but for support of actual research  
> > > projects requiring more than every day uses such as e-mail and  
> > > browsing.  The vBNS was furnished by a new company that was set up  
> > > for that purpose with Al Weiss, a former IBM VP as its CEO, ANS  
> > > (which I later realized was SNA spelled backwards...but I  
> > > digress).  And, we set up STARTAP, an international high- 
> > > performance R&A exchange point in Chicago so that the newly formed  
> > > high-performance networks of other countries could exchange  
> > > traffic with each other on a bi-lateral (no US AUP) agreement basis.
>
> Uh,... no.
>
> The NSFNET Backbone went to 45 mb/s under the same cooperative  
> agreement arrangements with the Merit-MCI-IBM consortium as the 1.5  
> mb/s backbone of 1988 (for which you wrote the RFP/solicitation,  
> Steve); during the lifetime of that cooperative agreement, ANS was  
> spun out and the consortium procured backbone service from ANS.
>
> ANS had nothing to do with the vBNS.  The vBNS was an OC3 (155 mb/s)  
> network furnished and operated by MCI under a coop agreement with  
> NSF beginning in 1995.  And as you say it was intended for high- 
> performance traffic
>
> Although the NSFNET backbone transition to commercial providers had  
> been carefully crafted as you note with adequate funding to the  
> Regionals, and NAPs to ensure universal connectivity, it became  
> clear to the academic community that NSF's vision of arms-length  
> service from commercial ISPs (as we would call them today) was at  
> best premature, and Internet2 - a sort of immune reaction to the NSF  
> plan - was formed in 1996 after a series of planning meetings that  
> had begun as soon as NSF's intentions were known.
>
> stephen wolff



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