rfc1259.txt

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Network Working Group                                           M. Kapor
Request for Comments: 1259                Electronic Frontier Foundation
                                                          September 1991


                        Building The Open Road:
          The NREN As Test-Bed For The National Public Network


Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard.  Distribution of this memo is
   unlimited.

Introduction

   A debate has begun about the future of America's communications
   infrastructure.  At stake is the future of the web of information
   links organically evolving from computer and telephone systems.  By
   the end of the next decade, these links will connect nearly all homes
   and businesses in the U.S.  They will serve as the main channels for
   commerce, learning, education, and entertainment in our society.  The
   new information infrastructure will not be created in a single step:
   neither by a massive infusion of public funds, nor with the private
   capital of a few tycoons, such as those who built the railroads.
   Rather the national, public broadband digital network will emerge
   from the "convergence" of the public telephone network, the cable
   television distribution system, and other networks such as the
   Internet.

   The United States Congress is now taking a critical step toward what
   I call the National Public Network, with its authorization of the
   National Research and Education Network (NREN, pronounced "en-ren").
   Not only will the NREN meet the computer and communication needs of
   scientists, researchers, and educators, but also, if properly
   implemented, it could demonstrate how a broadband network can be used
   in the future.  As policy makers debate the role of the public
   telephone and other existing information networks in the nation's
   information infrastructure, the NREN can serve as a working test-bed
   for new technologies, applications, and governing policies that will
   ultimately shape the larger national network.  Congress has indicated
   its intention that the NREN

      would provide American researchers and educators with the computer
      and information resources they need, while demonstrating how
      advanced computer, high speed networks, and electronic databases
      can improve the national information infrastructure for use by all



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      Americans. (1)

   As currently envisioned, the NREN

      would connect more than one million people at more than one
      thousand colleges, universities, laboratories, and hospitals
      throughout the country, giving them access to computing power and
      information -- resources unavailable anywhere today -- and making
      possible the rapid proliferation of a truly nationwide, ubiquitous
      network... (2)

   The combined demand of these users would develop innovative new
   services and further stimulate demand for existing network
   applications.  Library information services, for example, have
   already grown dramatically on the NREN's predecessor, the Internet,
   because the

      enhanced connectivity permits scholars and researchers to
      communicate in new and different ways.... Clearly, to be
      successful, effective, and of use to the academic and research
      communities, the NREN must be designed to nurture and accommodate
      both the current as will as future yet unknown uses of valuable
      information resources. (3)

   So as the NREN implementation process progresses, it is vital that
   the opportunities to stimulate innovative new information
   technologies be kept in mind, along with the specific needs of the
   mission agencies which will come to depend on the network.

   Far from evolving into the whole of the National Public Network
   itself, the NREN is best thought of as a prototype for the NPN, which
   will emerge over time from the phone system, cable television, and
   many computer networks.  But the NREN is a growth site which, unlike
   privately controlled systems, can be consciously shaped to meet
   public needs.  For a wide variety of services, some of which might
   not be commercially viable at the outset, the NREN can

      provide selective access that proves feasibility and leads to the
      creation of a commercial infrastructure that can support universal
      services.... If we fully focus on ...[current] goals and work our
      way through a multitude of technical and operational issues in the
      process, then the success of the NREN will fully support its
      extension to broader uses in the years to follow. (4)

   In order to function as an effective test-bed, one that promotes
   broad access to a range of innovative, developing services, the NREN
   must be built so that it is easy for developers to offer new kinds of
   applications, and is accessible to a diversity of users.  For



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   example, to encourage the development of creative, advanced library
   services, it must be easy for libraries to open their data bases to
   users all across the network.  And if these library services are to
   flourish through the NREN, then the services must be available to
   researchers and students all over the country, through a variety of
   channels.  Though the NREN itself is intended to meet the
   supercomputing and networking needs of the government-financed
   research community, Congress has wisely recognized that it can also
   function as a channel for delivery of a wide range of privately-
   developed information services.  To

      encourage use of the Network by commercial information service
      providers, where technically feasible, the Network shall have
      accounting mechanisms which allow, where appropriate, users or
      groups of users to be charged for their usage of copyrighted
      materials over the Network. (5)

   Congress can create an environment that stimulates information
   entrepreneurship by mandating that the NREN rely on open technical
   standards whose specifications are not controlled by any private
   parties and which are freely available for all to use.  Such non-
   proprietary standards will ensure that different parts of the network
   built and operated by independent parties, will all work together
   properly.  By employing widely-used, non-proprietary standards the
   NREN will make it easy for new information providers to offer their
   wares on the network.  The market will snowball: as more services are
   offered, more users will be attracted, who will increase overall
   demand.  The NREN will also be a test-bed for development and
   experimentation with new networking standards that facilitate even
   broader, more efficient interconnection than now possible on the
   Internet.  But throughout the stages of the NREN, all concerned
   should be sure that these functionalities are fostered.

   The NREN design and construction process is complex and will have
   significant effects on future communications infrastructure design:

      Building the NREN has frequently been described as akin to
      building a house, with various layers of the network architecture
      compared to parts of the house.  In an expanded view of this
      analogy, planning the NII [national information infrastructure] is
      like designing a large, urban city.

      The NREN is a big new subdivision on the edge of the metropolis,
      reserved for researchers and educators.  It is going to be built
      first and is going to look lonely out there in the middle of the
      pasture for a while.  But the city will grow up around it in time,
      and as construction proceeds, the misadventures encountered in the
      NREN subdivision will not have to be repeated in others.  And



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      there will be many house designs, not just those the NREN families
      are comfortable with.... The lessons we learn today in building
      the NREN will be used tomorrow in building the NII. (6)

   The coming implementation and design of the NREN offers us a critical
   opportunity to shape a small but important part of the National
   Public Network.

VISIONS

   At its best, the National Public Network would be the source of
   immense social benefits.  As a means of increasing social
   cohesiveness, while retaining the diversity that is an American
   strength, the network could help revitalize this country's business
   and culture.  As Senator Gore has said, the new national network that
   is emerging is one of the "smokestack industries of the information
   age." (7)  It will increase the amount of individual participation in
   common enterprise and politics.  It could also galvanize a new set of
   relationships -- business and personal -- between Americans and the
   rest of the world.

   The names and particular visions of the emerging information
   infrastructure vary from one observer to another. (8)  Senator Gore
   calls it the "National Information Superhighway."  Prof. Michael
   Dertouzos imagines a "National Information Infrastructure [which] ...
   would be a common resource of computer-communications services, as
   easy to use and as important as the telephone network, the electric
   power grid, and the interstate highways." (9)  I call it the National
   Public Network (NPN), in recognition of the vital role information
   technology has come to play in public life and all that it has to
   offer, if designed with the public good in mind.

   To what uses can we reasonably expect people to use a National Public
   Network?  We don't know.  Indeed, we probably can't know -- the users
   of the network will surprise us.  That's exactly what happened in the
   early days of the personal computer industry, when the first
   spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, spurred sales of the Apple II
   computer.  Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did not design
   the spreadsheet; they did not even conceive of it.  They created a
   platform which allowed someone else to bring the spreadsheet into
   being, and all the parties profited as a result, including the users.

   Based on today's systems, however, we can make a few educated guesses
   about the National Public Network.  We know that, like the telephone,
   it will serve both business and recreation needs, as well as offering
   crucial community services.  Messaging will be popular: time and time
   again, from the ARPAnet to Prodigy, people have surprised network
   planners with their eagerness to exchange mail.  "Mail" will not just



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   mean voice and text, but also pictures and video -- no doubt with
   many new variations.  One might imagine two people poring over a
   manuscript from opposite ends of the country, marking it up
   simultaneously and seeing each others' markings appear on the screen.

   We know from past demand on the Internet and commercial personal
   computer networks that the network will be used for electronic
   assembly -- virtual town halls, village greens, and coffee houses,
   again taking place not just through shared text (as in today's
   computer networks), but with multi-media transmissions, including
   images, voice, and video.  Unlike the telephone, this network will
   also be a publications medium, distributing electronic newsletters,
   video clips, and interpreted reports. (10)

   We can speculate but cannot be sure about novel uses of the network.
   An information marketplace will include electronic invoicing,
   billing, listing, brokering, advertising, comparison-shopping, and
   matchmaking of various kinds.  "Video on demand" will not just mean
   ordering current movies, as if they were spooling down from the local
   videotape store, but opening floodgates to vast new amounts of
   independent work, with high quality thanks to plummeting prices of
   professional-quality desktop video editors.  Customers will grow used
   to dialing up two-minute demos of homemade videos before ordering the
   full program and storing it on their own blank tape.

   There will be other important uses of the network as a simulation
   medium for experiences which are impossible to obtain in the mundane
   world.  If scientists want to explore the surface of a molecule,
   they'll do it in simulated form, using wrap-around three-dimensional