Hello. First sorry for the long e-Mail, but what happens in Germany now will affect the whole community and therefor i think you should read this mail :-) This press-Release is also available at http://www.decix.de/winpresseE.html. Information about the decix can be found at http://www.decix.de. Thank you for your patience --- Winfried Haug - Sprecher AK-DECIX im ECO e.V - Chair of AK-DECIX within ECO e.V For more information about the only neutral Germany Exchange Point DE-CIX please visit http://www.decix.de. The ECO Homepage may be found at http://www.eco.de If you want more information about joining DE-CIX please contact: sprecher@decix.de ------------------------schnipp-------------------schnipp--------------------- PRESS RELEASE COMPANY NEWS Support model of the Internet Service Providers for the DFN is discontinued – German WiN links are shut down Germany, November 1997. The leading German Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are ending the current voluntary support of the German science network (WiN) link to the commercial Internet landscape. The deadline has been set for 31 December 1997. In order to avoid a data exchange between the WiN and the commercial networks via international links which is cost-intensive for the tax-payer, the commercial Internet providers, at the suggestion of the DFN association, are offering a central exchange point as the new support model. Past support of the academic sector of the Internet Historically, the commercial network and the part of the Internet used for scientific purposes in Germany were based on different infrastructures. The commercial Internet providers support the link of the academic network (WiN) to the commercial Internet landscape. The millions needed annually for the financing of this support is voluntary and one-sided by the commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Discontinuation of the present support model at the end of the year The growing range of demand and the rising amount of access to commercial Internet contents from the WiN side is leading to a cost explosion of the current model. For this reason the ISPs will adapt their support of the DFN at the end of the year. As a result of the planned shutting down of the direct connection between the German ISPs and the WiN, in future data will be exchanged between the networks exclusively via international connections in the USA. For the ISPs this will lead to better capacity use of the international lines and evens out the current surplus net traffic from the USA to Germany. The international link of the WiN would be put under a lot of pressure by the joint additional traffic of its USA subscribers, which will lead to a price increase for the international link. This will have to be financed by tax revenue, which DFN’s WiN instigates by the state. In order to measure the precise effects a shut down will have on the traffic flow, the German ISPs will shut down their connections to WiN on 25th November 1997 at 12 o’clock for a trial period of 24 hours. Favoured solution by support model of a self-financing exchange point A new support model is currently being discussed by the commercial ISPs. This model allows for the setting-up of a central exchange point in Germany for the traffic between the German scientific network and the commercial networks. The setting-up and development of the tie would be sponsored by the ISPs with a one-off knock-on financing in the region of almost one million Marks over a two year period. The exchange of traffic via this type of connection point would ease the burden on the tax-payer by about six million Marks every year. This support model will be presented to the committee of the DFN and all its members in an open letter within the next few days. Undersigned Internet Service Providers Gerfnet Germany, Compuserve Network Services, GTN (Deutsches Provider Network), ECRC, Interactiv Networx, IS Internet Services, mediaWays, Nacamar, NetUse, NTG/Xlink, POP Point of Presence, Seicom, Spacenet, TCP/IP – Contrib.net, UUNET Deutschland