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Campaign to Block new NSFNET Awards by Mike Roberts and Where does the Real Interest of Mike Roberts
From: David Farber <>
Date: Sun, 27 Mar 1994 16:57:31 -0500
Never let it be said that interesting people steered away from controversial issues. There are two notes below, the first is a memo Mike Roberts, VP of EDUCOM, sent out to his university members and the second is a rebuttal by Gordon Cook. I will again accept and distribute arguments and counter-arguments. Dave ******************************************************************************* March 15, 1994 To: NTTF Members From: Mike Roberts Subj: Campaign to Block new NSFNET Awards Since the action by the National Science Board on February 11 approving the staff recommendation for the first two of four awards in connection with deployment of the next generation of NSFNET, a concerted effort is being made by several vendors to block the awards, including Sprint, Alternet and PSI. Those of you who follow the net traffic on this subject are familiar with the details. A cop y of the Foundation's press release on the awards appears below. While the NSF external review process, in which many of you participate, is not perfect, it has a long history of contributing to high quality science and infra- structure. In the particular case of this series of awards, the Networking Division of the Foundation went to considerable lengths to secure community input, and the final version of the Solicitation document reflected that input. The comments and suggestions of NTTF appear in a number of places in the document. The review and selection process for these awards was unusually thorough, as was the review by the Science Board itself. I am confident that the awards will be sustained. However, the current campaign by a noisy few seeking to advance their own economic interests has the potential to delay the transition to the new network arrange- ments, as well as to undermine the Foundation's ability to continue to use the Cooperative Agreement law for purposes of forming public-private partner- ships to advance networking research and development. As the events of the past six years have amply demonstrated, the collaboration of universities, computer firms, and telecommunications firms in developing and using advanced networking has had a very tangible positive effect on the competitive position of our electronics industry, and on the infrastructure for research and education. The use of the Cooperative Agreement Act by the Foundation to form joint ventures in networking has had precisely the result intended by Congress when it was passed. It is not only in the national interest, it is in the interests of the university community to promote and defend the collaborative structure and process which is contained in the Cooperative Agreement Act. I hope that you will find appropriate opportunities to do so with your campus executive structure and with vendors with whom you come in contact. - - Mike. ------------------------------- Message Contents ---------------------------- - - National Science Foundation February 14, 1994 NSF PR 94-8 NSB GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO NSFNET'S NEXT STEPS: NEW ARCHITECTURE AND A CUTTING-EDGE NETWORK Two major developments toward the information superhighway received green lights Friday from the National Science Board (NSB). At its meeting in Arlington, Va., the board gave its administrative approval for the National Science Foundation (NSF) to proceed with arrangements for a new architecture for the NSFNET computer network services, including an experimental expressway -- called a very high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS). NSFNET currently links more than 1,000 U.S. universities and other research and educational institutions to the Internet. The NSB, a 24-member board that governs major policy decisions of the NSF, approved a proposal that the agency's networking division award the operation of the vBNS to MCI Communications Corp. of Washington, D.C., for a total not to exceed $50 million over five years. The NSB also approved a plan by the networking division to establish two five-year collaborative cooperative agreements to offer routing arbiter (RA) services for NSFNET and the Internet. Merit Network, Inc., a consortium of Michigan universities, will receive up to $11,099,743 to provide overall RA management and to take the lead responsibility for a registry database, an operations center, and software development. The University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute, working with IBM, will receive up to $9,235,847 to develop route servers, advanced routing techniques, a testbed, and routing engineering. According to Stephen Wolff, director of NSF's Division of Networking and Communications Research and Infrastructure, "The board's action gives us the license and the framework to negotiate with the parties involved. The decisions to work with MCI, Merit, and USC followed an exhaustive review process." Today's developments, Wolff said, are among the first steps in what will be an orderly transition from the current NSFNET architecture to a new arrangement that, while advancing both, will distinguish more clearly between cutting-edge experimental efforts and widely used public "commodity" networks . "The vBNS will be a physically separate network," said Wolff, "one to push the parameters of high-speed networking and to connect NSF's supercomputer centers, without affecting general network services." The routing arbiter will be one of three major components of the new, advance d "general-use" network services. The other two components, which have not yet been awarded, are projects calling for network access point managers and for regional network providers. With transmission capability of 45 million bits of data per second, the current NSFNET backbone makes the connections over commercially leased lines by linking 19 sites-called nodes-throughout the U.S. At these sites, mid-level or regional networks are attached and thus interconnected. These regional networks, in turn, reach out to-and from-thousands of local networks at schools, universities, libraries, research laboratories, government facilities and supporting commercial organizations. This web of computer conduits allows its users to exchange electronic mail, avail themselves of massive computers, and search libraries and databases-all at distant sites almost instantaneously. Developed by NSF in 1985, the NSFNET program long ago outgrew its initial vision: to provide broadband access to NSF's five supercomputing centers for researchers with data- or algorithm-intensive projects. The program now supports not only the expanding backbone services, but also directory and information services, operations for regional networks, and connections for universities. The new architecture calls for the regional networks to secure backbone services from commercial network providers, with a five-year phasing out of NSF's backbone funding for the regionals. NSFNET Program Director Priscilla Huston said, "Our first priority as we make this transition is to ensure that the new infrastructure is robust and dependable before we shut down what has become a legendary national backbone service among the networking community. The new architecture will allow the research and education communities to take advantage of the excellent service s available from commercial suppliers while it provides the interconnectivity that's essential for a vibrant national infrastructure." "The transition," said Wolff, "recognizes the changing nature of the networking marketplace." "In 1987 you couldn't buy high-bandwidth Internet services," said Wolff. "There were neither suppliers nor market. So we commissioned a high-bandwidth backbone; and, in the seven years since, a number of comparable commercial services have arisen-catalyzed in part by the market generated by the NSFNET backbone. So now we can give backbone funding to the regionals and let them buy that connectivity from the suppliers of their choice." -end- ******************************************************************************** From: cook () path net (Gordon Cook) Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 22:13:50 GMT To: farber () central cis upenn edu Subject: Where does the Real Interest of Mike Roberts Constituents Lie? Dave Farber has shared Mike Roberts post to NTTF with me and asked me to comment. The timing couldn't be better since I have just finished the first draft of a 6,000 word cover article for the April COOK Report on Internet -> NREN comparing and contrasting, in great detail, the MCI protest of Sprint's win of ESnet and Sprint's protest of MCI's win of the vBNS. I make no secret of the fact that I am sympathetic to Sprint. Therefore I *regret* to report that when I publish in about two weeks - based on the information I have now - I will report that MCI's ESnet protest seems exceptionally strong and that Sprint's vBNS protest seems exceptionally weak. On the basis of the information I now have sprint is simply not prepared to play political and legal hardball of the requisite stature. Now Mike's constituency is the Educom ivory tower academic elite and he is perfectly entitled to lobby for them as he sees fit. Only problem is how long will it before some people on the hill begin to catch on to the self-serving nature of what Mike is defending and to ask why large dollars are spent helping companies like MCI, IBM, ANS and NT play technology catch-up? If what the NSF, Mike Nelson and Al Gore are continuing to aide and abet were to become widely understood, there would likely be a backlash against it. If there is a backlash Congress is likely to punish the academic and research community that Mike Roberts represents. It seems to me that Mike is asking the University community to defend the raid on federal treasury to support companies like MCI I suspect some of you saw my post on com-priv the other day about the incestuous and secretive nature of the award process for the vBNS in particular and the NSF 93-52 solicitation in general. If Mike Roberts really believes that this process was as open and above boards as he says, he is decieving himself. Several key players have told me off record that they agree with my remarks. That the cooperative agreement process that has indeed served the academic community so hand$omely in the past cannot be expected to continue to be used indefinitely into the future - given the increasing strains on the federal budget and the social and economic problems we face on all fronts. Cooperative agreements, as we have seen with NSFnet, are not particularly cost effective given contractual alternatives. The concept of cost sharing as it has been used to justify the federal give away to ANS, IBM and MCI up to this point is especially specious. To claim as Steve Wolff has that the intent of the Boucher ammendment to NSFnet AUP was to further justify the kind of give away represented by the grant to MCIof the right to sell commercial service to the vBNS is an arrogant repeat of what caused the blow up documented by the New York Times on December 20 1991. I attended the March 12 1991 hearing out of which that ammendent came and I will assert that this was NOT what Boucher or the hearing intended. Moreover several key people have said they agree. Yes those in the Castle had better wake up. The peasants *WILL*storm the gates if they don't! ________________________________________________ Mike says: a concerted effort is being made by several vendors to block the awards, including Sprint, Alternet and PSI. Cook: What about MCI Mike? Why do you leave their protest of ESnet out? Roberts: In the particular case of this series of awards, the Networking Division of the Foundation went to considerable lengths to secure community input, and the final version of the Solicitation document reflected that input. Cook: And it then went behind closed doors to do its own thing...the rest of us be damned. Roberts: The review and selection process for these awards was unusually thorough, as was the review by the Science Board itself. Cook: Science Board Review was thorough??? In comparison to what? They spent 12 hours trying to understand the complexity of something that requires full time involvement to keep up to speed on instead of the normal 6?? Robert: However, the current campaign by a noisy few seeking to advance their own economic interests has the potential to delay the transition to the new network arrange- ments, as well as to undermine the Foundation's ability to continue to use the Cooperative Agreement law for purposes of forming public-private partnerships to advance networking research and development. Cook: Considering the embarrassing outcome of the 1990 arrangements I hope so. *Financial* interests? Gee Mike, I happen to think there is a PUBLIC interest to be served by bringing these issues out into the open. I can tell you that compared to the tack that the strictly business oriented newsletters are taking that although I doing quite ok I sure as hell am not getting rich. Roberts: As the events of the past six years have amply demonstrated, the collaboration of universities, computer firms, and telecommunications firms in developing and using advanced networking has had a very tangible positive effect on the competitive position of our electronics industry, and on the infrastructure for research and education. The use of the Cooperative Agreement Act by the Foundation to form joint ventures in networking has had precisely the result intended by Congress when it was passed. Cook: to those who have intimate knowledge of the history of who was helped and who was not, this argument simply will not withstand scrutiny. Roberts: It is not only in the national interest, it is in the interests of the university community to promote and defend the collaborative structure and process which is contained in the Cooperative Agreement Act. Cook: Rubbish! If the university community doesn't wake up, this will blow up in its face! PS I will be off line shortly for three days at a washington DC meeting of telestrategies. Will be happy to deal with any fallout when I returnlate weds evening march 23. ___________________________________________________________________ Gordon Cook, Editor Publisher: COOK Report on Internet -> NREN 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 cook () path net (609) 882-2572 Subscriptions: $500 corporate site license; $175 educational & non prof., $85 individ. ___________________________________________________________________
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