I expect Mike that Tim is well aware of the history of the CIX which just a year ago was reaching an all time low. Now Bob collet has done well since he took over, but the CIX still does not have widespread support. It formed a CIX mail list about a month ago. I joined. *NO* traffic. It has never been able to communicate outside the bounds of its own members and until it finds a way to do this successfully will not become *THE* trade association that I think the industry really DOES need. Tim's posts may be a bit quixotic but they DO point to an unfilled need. ******************************************************************** Gordon Cook, Editor & Publisher Subscript.: Individ-ascii $85 The COOK Report on Internet Non Profit. $150 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 Small Corp & Gov't $200 (609) 882-2572 Corporate $350 Internet: cook@cookreport.com Corporate. Site Lic $650 Newly expanded COOK Report Web Pages http://pobox.com/cook/ ******************************************************************** On Sun, 5 Nov 1995, Mike O'Dell wrote:

Uh, you have been pre-dated by about 3 years by the

Commercial Internet Exchange

lots of network operators and access providers already belong.

If what you propose hasn't been done in that already-existing forum, maybe there's a reason that would foretell the expected success of another parallel organization?

-mo

I expect Mike that Tim is well aware of the history of the CIX which just

Thank you Gordon. Of course I am well aware of CIX. In another one of my Don Quixote style 'quixotic' posts I asked the question directly " where does all the CIX funding money ...?" if you recall, and my call with sword in hand, windmill in sight was fell silently in the rain.

a year ago was reaching an all time low. Now Bob collet has done well since he took over, but the CIX still does not have widespread support. It formed a CIX mail list about a month ago. I joined. *NO* traffic. It has never been able to communicate outside the bounds of its own members and until it finds a way to do this successfully will not become *THE* trade association that I think the industry really DOES need.

As a personal fan of Mr. Quixote, and a passionate romantic at heart as well an hopeless romantic that believes in social conscious above profit ....... IPSPA.ORG would. 1) Attempt to create very inexpensive NAPs that encourage small ISPs to participate; 2) Work openly and directly with the community to create a commerical internet position and policy that would hope to mitigate the untasteful image of the Internet as a enclave of lawless citizens; 3) Work openly and publically to create an image of Internet Citizen: i) The New American Dream; ii) A Link on Every Land; iii) Clean Unadulterated Enclaves for Our Children to Play; iv) Promote Internet based Educational services; including the ability to work on advance degrees on-line; v) Work to provide Internet Services for the members of or Society typically ignored in modern society; a) the elderly; b) the poor and socially disadvantaged; c) the handicapped; and d) the sick and dying. I agree totally with Gordon. I am a passionate romatic out to change the world and at 40 years old I thought that I had challenged my last windmill. Until recently.... The Internet as such a tremendous and almost unlimited potential to to good for the People we love and care about, bringing everyone closer together in a time in history we all need to come together on the things that unite us and laugh at the things that divide us. Quixotically, as usual .... Tim -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Tim Bass | #include<campfire.h> | | Principal Network Systems Engineer | for(beer=100;beer>1;beer++){ | | The Silk Road Group, Ltd. | take_one_down(); | | | pass_it_around(); | | http://www.silkroad.com/ | } | | | back_to_work(); /*never reached */ | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

< condensed from Gordon's reply>

........................... Sounds good to me. Cause with the RBOCs and Cable banging at the door, ISOC fumbling just as badly as the CIX, people suggesting that the IETF needs to incorporate but no one there finding time to do it, I sure do wonder who and/or what will ever manage to preserve and protect the internet vision?

The irony of the situation is interesting. We are almost in complete control of our destination. The US is in the process of an historical telecommunications deregulation. The 'last mile' in wireless is moving to DS3 by 1Q 96 and the FCC is opening it's procedures as never before. Meanwhile, with a wide open ocean, sunny skies and an unprecedented tail wind.... we can chart our own course and destiny. We all understand that telecommuncations is the corner stone of the democratic process. We all understand the power of the media. We all understand that united we grow, divided we fall. But most important of all, we all know in our hearts that technical progress without an basic foundation in the advancement of our fragile social fabric is futile. Have you ever seen the joy in an elderly person, retired, isolated from the world, on the Internet, communicating with both the young and old. The most beautiful sound I heard this week was my mother, a grandmother, telling me how much she want to .... " cruise the net and explore cyberspace ..." with a sound of excitement in her voice I have not heard in years. We stand on the edge of a social event that has the potential to reshape the world, much like Einstein's much hailed atomic theories. IPSPA.ORG should consider the social benefit that the Internet brings to society, our children, our grandparents, the isolated, the weak. This is our ultimate social responsibility as citizens. If we do this with kind consideration of our fragile infrastructure as we build networks, our civilization benefits greatly. There are a lot more "profits" to reap than the $$$$ mentioned earlier. There is an intangible social benefit that will do more for our democracy and society than money can ever buy. That is what we should strive to obtain and value...... the things in life that money, included federal money cannot buy and has never bought since the dawn of social programs in the country. .... quixotically believing in the American dream..... Tim -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Tim Bass | #include<campfire.h> | | Principal Network Systems Engineer | for(beer=100;beer>1;beer++){ | | The Silk Road Group, Ltd. | take_one_down(); | | | pass_it_around(); | | http://www.silkroad.com/ | } | | | back_to_work(); /*never reached */ | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I hate to get involved in another CIX-bashing session, and I will try really hard to avoid it. CIX does a lot of work in Washington D.C., going to FCC meetings and various congressional subcommittee meetings and trying to represent the ISP/NSP point of view. I have no idea how effective they are since I don't follow the details -- but they do seem to keep busy. My own part of the CIX universe is to maintain (and recently, to grow) the CIX interconnect. We aren't the center of the Internet, but there is no center of the Internet so I'm not feeling left out. We're also plunging ahead with the IRTS project, I'll send a postscript file to anyone who asks to see the original white paper on it. This isn't meant to take away from Tim Bass' proposal, which might be necessary and reasonable. I just hate to see statements of the form, "CIX is a no-op" go unchallenged. CIX was the original "NAP" so please be nice to it. If it has to die, let it be in peace and with honours. And maybe it doesn't have to die, so maybe you should give Bob Collet a call before you make up your mind.

On Sun, 5 Nov 1995, Gordon Cook wrote:

I hear rumblings about a new world federation of internet groups.

Is this something that got started at Telecomm 95 in Geneva? Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022 Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-542-4130 http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com

On Sun, 5 Nov 1995, Gordon Cook wrote:

What are we to do when in the middle of $$$ goldrush we essentially have the internet composed of groups that other than keeping it operating share very little in the way of common motivations and goals?

With the CIX I have seen a recognition of a need to change and some new directions floated. Yet I have seen nothing to suggest that the organizations policy has really reached outside that of ithe organizations of its board members. Last time I looked at the CIX web they touted about 200 members....all in a nice single list with no distinction of how many had paid the $7,500 price of membership as opposed to the new and minimal $1,000.

I believe that internet business model issues will be critical next year. Starting with quality of service issues that hans Werner has written about here and going on to issue of traffic or route based settlements, and fall out from CIDR routing issues, there are straws in the wind that could make 1996 a year of crunch by the largest two dozen ISPs against the rest.

I perceive Tim's call as being directed at the rest..... most of which are too busy trying to figure out how to cost effectively serve new customers than to organize. I hear rumblings about a new world federation of internet groups. Sounds good to me. Cause with the RBOCs and Cable banging at the door, ISOC fumbling just as badly as the CIX, people suggesting that the IETF needs to incorporate but no one there finding time to do it, I sure do wonder who and/or what will ever manage to preserve and protect the internet vision?

I agree. Lets manage ourselves before we get managed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael A. Nasto Customer Support Manager NYSERNet, Inc. Phone: 315-453-2912 x 256 200 Elwood Davis Road Fax: 315-453-3052 Suite 103 Email: mnasto@franklin.nysernet.org Liverpool, NY 13088-6147 mnasto@transit.nyser.net +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Carpe Diem +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The CIX is great if you're in Santa Clara, or somewhere nearby, but it tends to be pretty slow, and isn't much use to those of us outside the state of California.

Well over half of the connected CIX members have their main corporate offices outside California. And I don't experience slowness in the SMDS cloud; the packet loss rate is higher on either MAE's shared FDDI than on Pac Bell's SMDS. Just one man's opinion. I don't speak for CIX.

...

If what you propose hasn't been done in that already-existing forum, maybe there's a reason that would foretell the expected success of another parallel organization?

-mo

Pizza & Beer at the meetings?

Larry

Pizza & Beer at the meetings were the main attraction of IPSPA.ORG. Studies by major corporations indicate that pizza is the single most motivating factor to get people more involved :-) In addition, according to historians the US Declaration of Independance was drafted over and over again, mainly due to the Samual Adams Lager that was spilled on the parchment. There are countless events of historical significance where either pizza or beer have literally changed the course of human events. It was also leaked to the press that the real secret to the early success in talks at the Bosnian crisis was *not* the constant NATO shelling. Someone simply called out for Pizza and Beer :-) -Tim -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Tim Bass | #include<campfire.h> | | Principal Network Systems Engineer | for(beer=100;beer>1;beer++){ | | The Silk Road Group, Ltd. | take_one_down(); | | | pass_it_around(); | | http://www.silkroad.com/ | } | | | back_to_work(); /*never reached */ | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+