At 04:01 PM 10/8/96 -0500, Paul J. Zawada wrote:

At 04:13 PM 10/8/96 -0400, Richard Stiennon wrote:

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At 03:41 PM 10/8/96 -0400, Scott Huddle wrote:

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Isn't this the same mission as the vBNS?

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University Internet Proposed

No, it sounds like a way for the Universities to upgrade from their T1 connections without making room in their budgets!

Sort of...

It's a way for Universities to talk to _each_other_ at higher speeds without having to pay for the *ahem* value "added" by the Internet. Higher-Ed institutions want to talk to each other at higher speeds but don't necessarily want pay for their undergrads' (or professors' for that matter) ability to download nudie-GIFs 20x faster.

Persons have already hashed the vBNS issue around a bit. What is going to keep that INET2 from becoming the nudie network? Since most business customers via ISPs are dialed in (even on ISDN), I can't imagine the network capacity used for illicit transfers being high. However, in ethernet connected dorms and labs on campuses with DS3 connectivity, there is significant possible network usage for illicit transfers, network games, etc. I can see it for the next version of DOOM. "DOOM the Final Frontier requires a IBMPC compat with P7-3000 or equivalent, Superdooper VGA, THX compatible soundcard, VR suit, and FDDI connection to INET 2 for optimal play". I see benefits for a EDU consortium like CIX's network with all the edus peered to each other. But there are far too many networks with overlapping purposes. Research/Education: NSF funds vBNS. NASA funds NSI. Both of these are used for "worthy" educational/research. And now Internet II. Defense: DoD has its own Internet'd networks. Business/Commercial: Then you have CIX. And the major NSPs/NAPs. While, there is nothing to be done about businesses (CIX,NSPs,NAPs) each building the same infrastructure over and over as long as they see $ in doing so. I think that someone has to draw the line on taxpayer funded networks. The effort needs to be made to consolidate these networks, cutting wasted resources.

So while there's no more money in the budget for faster Internet connectivity, many university provosts would be willing to spend more money for bandwidth if it were used for "nobler" pursuits. Basically, they want the Internet they had 6 years ago only faster.

Internet II, if it happens, would be Higher-Ed's intranet.

Agreed. I used to share that same Internet 6 years ago. I don't think another network is going to make that happen though. It will be just another thing to manage. Another BGP peer for the campus routers. Its resources will be used for other purposes than the original intent. -Ken --- Ken Lam lam@awod.com Integrated Technical Systems Systems, Networks, and Internet Solutions -- Defining Technology Today "'Plug and Play' was only applicable to the original ATARI(tm)"