rfc1462.txt

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   The old rule for when things are confusing is "follow the money."
   Well, this won't help you to understand the Internet. No one pays for
   "it"; there is no Internet, Inc. that collects fees from all Internet
   networks or users. Instead, everyone pays for their part.  The NSF
   pays for NSFNET. NASA pays for the NASA Science Internet.  Networks
   get together and decide how to connect themselves together and fund
   these interconnections. A college or corporation pays for their
   connection to some regional network, which in turn pays a national
   provider for its access.

What Does This Mean for Me?

   The concept that the Internet is not a network, but a collection of
   networks, means little to the end user. You want to do something
   useful: run a program, or access some unique data. You shouldn't have
   to worry about how it's all stuck together. Consider the telephone
   system--it's an internet, too. Pacific Bell, AT&T, MCI, British
   Telephony, Telefonos de Mexico, and so on, are all separate
   corporations that run pieces of the telephone system. They worry
   about how to make it all work together; all you have to do is dial.

   If you ignore cost and commercials, you shouldn't care if you are
   dealing with MCI, AT&T, or Sprint. Dial the number and it works.




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RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993


   You only care who carries your calls when a problem occurs. If
   something goes out of service, only one of those companies can fix
   it. They talk to each other about problems, but each phone carrier is
   responsible for fixing problems on its own part of the system.  The
   same is true on the Internet. Each network has its own network
   operations center (NOC). The operation centers talk to each other and
   know how to resolve problems. Your site has a contract with one of
   the Internet's constituent networks, and its job is to keep your site
   happy. So if something goes wrong, they are the ones to gripe at. If
   it's not their problem, they'll pass it along.

What Does the Future Hold?

   Finally, a question I can answer. It's not that I have a crystal ball
   (if I did I'd spend my time on Wall Street instead of writing a
   book). Rather, these are the things that the IAB and the IETF discuss
   at their meetings. Most people don't care about the long discussions;
   they only want to know how they'll be affected. So, here are
   highlights of the networking future.

New Standard Protocols

   When I was talking about how the Internet started, I mentioned the
   International Standards Organization (ISO) and their set of protocol
   standards. Well, they finally finished designing it. Now it is an
   international standard, typically referred to as the ISO/OSI (Open
   Systems Interconnect) protocol suite. Many of the Internet's
   component networks allow use of OSI today. There isn't much demand,
   yet. The U.S. government has taken a position that government
   computers should be able to speak these protocols. Many have the
   software, but few are using it now.

   It's really unclear how much demand there will be for OSI,
   notwithstanding the government backing. Many people feel that the
   current approach isn't broke, so why fix it? They are just becoming
   comfortable with what they have, why should they have to learn a new
   set of commands and terminology just because it is the standard?

   Currently there are no real advantages to moving to OSI. It is more
   complex and less mature than IP, and hence doesn't work as
   efficiently. OSI does offer hope of some additional features, but it
   also suffers from some of the same problems which will plague IP as
   the network gets much bigger and faster. It's clear that some sites
   will convert to the OSI protocols over the next few years.  The
   question is: how many?






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RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993


International Connections

   The Internet has been an international network for a long time, but
   it only extended to the United States' allies and overseas military
   bases. Now, with the less paranoid world environment, the Internet is
   spreading everywhere. It's currently in over 50 countries, and the
   number is rapidly increasing. Eastern European countries longing for
   western scientific ties have wanted to participate for a long time,
   but were excluded by government regulation. This ban has been
   relaxed. Third world countries that formerly didn't have the means to
   participate now view the Internet as a way to raise their education
   and technology levels.

   In Europe, the development of the Internet used to be hampered by
   national policies mandating OSI protocols, regarding IP as a cultural
   threat akin to EuroDisney.  These policies prevented development of
   large scale Internet infrastructures except for the Scandinavian
   countries which embraced the Internet protocols long ago and are
   already well-connected.  In 1989, RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) began
   coordinating the operation of the Internet in Europe and presently
   about 25% of all hosts connected to the Internet are located in
   Europe.

   At present, the Internet's international expansion is hampered by the
   lack of a good supporting infrastructure, namely a decent telephone
   system. In both Eastern Europe and the third world, a state-of-the-
   art phone system is nonexistent. Even in major cities, connections
   are limited to the speeds available to the average home anywhere in
   the U.S., 9600 bits/second. Typically, even if one of these countries
   is "on the Internet," only a few sites are accessible. Usually, this
   is the major technical university for that country. However, as phone
   systems improve, you can expect this to change too; more and more,
   you'll see smaller sites (even individual home systems) connecting to
   the Internet.

Commercialization

   Many big corporations have been on the Internet for years. For the
   most part, their participation has been limited to their research and
   engineering departments. The same corporations used some other
   network (usually a private network) for their business
   communications. After all, this IP stuff was only an academic toy.
   The IBM mainframes that handled their commercial data processing did
   the "real" networking using a protocol suite called System Network
   Architecture (SNA).

   Businesses are now discovering that running multiple networks is
   expensive. Some are beginning to look to the Internet for "one-stop"



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RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993


   network shopping. They were scared away in the past by policies which
   excluded or restricted commercial use. Many of these policies are
   under review and will change. As these restrictions drop, commercial
   use of the Internet will become progressively more common.

   This should be especially good for small businesses. Motorola or
   Standard Oil can afford to run nationwide networks connecting their
   sites, but Ace Custom Software couldn't. If Ace has a San Jose office
   and a Washington office, all it needs is an Internet connection on
   each end. For all practical purposes, they have a nationwide
   corporate network, just like the big boys.

Privatization

   Right behind commercialization comes privatization. For years, the
   networking community has wanted the telephone companies and other
   for-profit ventures to provide "off the shelf" IP connections.  That
   is, just like you can place an order for a telephone jack in your
   house for your telephone, you could do this for an Internet
   connection. You order, the telephone installer leaves, and you plug
   your computer into the Internet. Except for Bolt, Beranek and Newman,
   the company that ran the ARPAnet, there weren't any takers.  The
   telephone companies have historically said, "We'll sell you phone
   lines, and you can do whatever you like with them." By default, the
   Federal government stayed in the networking business.

   Now that large corporations have become interested in the Internet,
   the phone companies have started to change their attitude. Now they
   and other profit-oriented network purveyors complain that the
   government ought to get out of the network business. After all, who
   best can provide network services but the "phone companies"?  They've
   got the ear of a lot of political people, to whom it appears to be a
   reasonable thing. If you talk to phone company personnel, many of
   them still don't really understand what the Internet is about. They
   ain't got religion, but they are studying the Bible furiously.
   (Apologies to those telephone company employees who saw the light
   years ago and have been trying to drag their employers into church.)

   Although most people in the networking community think that
   privatization is a good idea, there are some obstacles in the way.
   Most revolve around the funding for the connections that are already
   in place. Many schools are connected because the government pays part
   of the bill. If they had to pay their own way, some schools would
   probably decide to spend their money elsewhere. Major research
   institutions would certainly stay on the net; but some smaller
   colleges might not, and the costs would probably be prohibitive for
   most secondary schools (let alone grade schools).  What if the school
   could afford either an Internet connection or a science lab? It's



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RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993


   unclear which one would get funded. The Internet has not yet become a
   "necessity" in many people's minds. When it does, expect
   privatization to come quickly.

   Well, enough questions about the history of the information highway
   system. It's time to walk to the edge of the road, try and hitch a
   ride, and be on your way.

Acknowledgments

   We would like to thank O'Reilly & Associates for permission to
   reprint the chapter from their book by Ed Krol (1992), "The Whole
   Internet User's Guide and Catalog."

For More Information

   Hoffman, E. and L. Jackson. (1993) "FYI on Introducing the Internet
   --A Short Bibliography of Introductory Internetworking Readings for
   the Network Novice," 4 p.  (FYI 19, RFC 1463).

      To find out how to obtain this document and other on-line
      introductory readings, send an e-mail message to:
      [e-mail], with the following text:
      send access.guide.

   Krol, Ed. (1992) The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog,
   O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, CA. ISBN 1-56592-025-2.

   Quarterman, J. (1993) "Recent Internet Books," 15 p. (RFC 1432).

   The Internet Society
   Phone: [phone]
   Fax: [phone]
   E-mail: [e-mail]

















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RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993


Security Considerations

   Security issues are not discussed in this memo.

Authors' Addresses

   Ed Krol
   Computing and Communications Service Office
   Univ. of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC)
   1304 W Springfield
   Urbana, IL 61801

   Phone: [phone]
   EMail: [e-mail]


   Ellen Hoffman
   Merit Network, Inc.
   2901 Hubbard, Pod-G
   Ann Arbor, MI 48105

   Phone: [phone]
   EMail: [e-mail]




























Krol & Hoffman                                                 [Page 11]