rfc1527.txt

RFC 的详细文档！

   If Congress has doubts about the current situation, it might want to
   consider the creation of an entity for NREN management, development,
   oversight and subsidization more neutral than the NSF.

   Action should be taken to ensure that any such an entity be more
   representative of the full network constituency than is the NSF.  If
   Congress decides to sanction network use by a community broader than
   the scientific and research elite, it must understand the importance
   of creating a forum that would bring together the complete range of
   stake holders in the national network.

   While such a forum would not have to be a carbon copy of the
   Corporation for Public Broadcasting, given the half billion dollars
   to be spent on the network over the next five years and the very
   confused and contentious policy picture, it might make sense to spend
   perhaps a million dollars a year on the creation of an independent
   oversight and planning agency for the network. Such an entity could
   report its findings to the Congress and respond to goals formulated
   by the Congress.

   Congress could declare the development and maintenance of a national
   public data network infrastructure a matter of national priority. It
   could make it clear the government will, as it does in issues of
   national transportation systems, the national financial system, and



Cook                                                            [Page 9]

RFC 1527                Cook Report on Internet           September 1993


   national communications systems, maintain an interest in the
   development and control of a system that serves both the goals of
   improved education and new technology development.

   To carry out such a mandate, a Corporation for Public Networking
   (CPN) could have fifteen governors nominated by the members of the
   network community and subject to the approval of the Congress.

   Each governor would represent a network constituency.

               1. The NSF
               2. Department of Energy
               3. National Aeronautics & Space Administration
               4. Advanced Research Projects Agency
               5. Corporate Users
               6. K-12
               7. Higher Education
               8. Public Libraries & State and Local Networks
               9. Commercial Network Information Service Providers
              10. Interexchange Carriers such as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc.
              11. The Regional Bell Operating Companies
              12. Personal Computer Users
              13. Computer Manufacturers
              14. Disabled Users
              15. University Computing

   Since the legislation calls for backbone nodes in all 50 states, such
   a structure would be a reasonable way to coordinate Federal support
   for the network on a truly national basis - one that, by
   acknowledging the network as a national resource, would give
   representation to the full breadth of its constituencies.  Governors
   could use the network to sample and help to articulate the national
   concerns of their respective constituencies.

   If it adopted these goals, Congress could give a CPN a range of
   powers:

         1.   The CPN could be a forum for the expression of the
              interests of all NREN constituencies.  In the event the
              network were to be administered by the NSF, it could be
              serve as a much more accurate sounding board of network
              user concerns than the FNC or the FNC Advisory Council.

         2.   The CPN could be authorized to make recommendations to NSF
              and other agencies about how funds should be distributed.

              Such recommendations could include truly independent
              assessments of the technical needs of the network



Cook                                                           [Page 10]

RFC 1527                Cook Report on Internet           September 1993


              community and the most cost effective ways of achieving
              them.

         3.   The CPN could itself be given responsibility for funding
              distribution.  Such responsibilities would incur an
              increase in administrative costs and staff.  Nevertheless,
              by creating an opportunity to start a process from scratch
              and one that would consequently be free of the vested
              interests of the National Science Foundation in high-end
              network solutions, Congress would likely get a clearer
              picture of where and how effectively public monies were
              being expended. With such responsibility the CPN could
              also keep extensive pressure on network providers to
              remain interconnected.  When thinking about cost, Congress
              should also remember that effective oversight of subsidies
              funneled through NSF would imply the hiring of extra staff
              within that agency as well.

         4.   Congress might want to ask a CPN to examine the use of the
              $200 million in NREN R&D monies. Policy direction
              dictating the spending of Federal funds is still suffering
              from the fuzzy boundaries between the network as a tool
              for leveraging technology competitiveness into commercial
              networking environments and the network as a tool to
              facilitate science and education.  If Congress decides
              that the major policy direction of the network should be
              to develop the network for use as a tool in support of
              science and education, then it may want monies directed
              toward ARPA to be focused on improved databases, user
              interfaces and user tools like knowbots rather than a
              faster network used by fewer and fewer people.  A CPN that
              was representative of the breadth of the network's user
              constituencies could provide better guidance than the
              FCCSET or ARPA for spending Federal subsidies aimed at
              adding new capabilities to the network.

         5.   Additional levels of involvement could have the CPN act as
              a national quasi-board of networking public utilities.  It
              could be given an opportunity to promote low cost access
              plans developed by commercial providers.  If it borrowed
              some of the fund raising structure of National Public
              Radio, it should be able to raise very significant funds
              from grass roots users at the individual and small
              business level who are made to feel that they have a stake
              in its operation.

         6.   If congress wanted to increase further the role given the
              CPN, it could decide that with network commercialization



Cook                                                           [Page 11]

RFC 1527                Cook Report on Internet           September 1993


              and technology transfer goals completed, the majority of
              the NREN funds go to the CPN which could then put out a
              bid for a CPN backbone.  In effect Congress could dictate
              that the backbone announced by the NSF for implementation
              in 1993 be implemented and run as a joint project between
              the NSF and a CPN.

              All entities should be considered eligible to join and use
              the CPN in support of research and education.  Commercial
              companies who wanted to use the CPN to interact with the
              academic community should pay a commercial rate to do so.

              With the availability of a parallel commercial network,
              commercial restrictions on the CPN could be very much
              loosened to include anything in support of research and
              education.  The CPN would study and report to Congress on
              how gateways between commercial TCP/IP networks and the
              CPN network could be maintained.

         7.   Some suggest that the Congress go even further. These
              people emphasize that a replacement for the R&D aspects of
              the Internet in the context of commercialization and
              privatization is uncertain.  Bell Labs and Bellcore remain
              as the research arms of the Public Switched Telephone
              Network.  However neither of them have ever developed
              major strengths in wide area data networking. Nor do they
              appear to be likely to do so in the near future.  Despite
              this situation, the major private investment made in the
              Gigabit Testbeds indicate that the american
              telecommunications industry feels a need to invest in
              continued research.  This is something that the current
              commercial players are too small to do.  Furthermore, it
              is something that the larger players driven by pressure to
              report quarterly profits may find difficult to do.

              Congress could make a decision that Federal investment in
              the technology should emphasize less pump-priming to
              increase the pace of what most see as inevitable
              commercialization and more the continued building of new
              networking technology for both technology transfer and
              support of the technology as an enabling tool.  In this
              case Congress could direct the CPN to plan, deploy and
              manage a state of the art public information
              infrastructure. With goals for constituencies and levels
              of service defined, the CPN could produce for Congress
              multiple scenarios for developing and maintaining two
              networks.




Cook                                                           [Page 12]

RFC 1527                Cook Report on Internet           September 1993


              The first would be an experimental network where the very
              newest technologies could be explored.  It could be very
              similar to the current gigabit testbeds but this time with
              all five projects linked together.  The second would be a
              state-of-the-art operational network that can provide wide
              spread field trials of technology developed on the
              experimental network. With the maturation of the
              technology on the operational network it would be
              available for open transfer to commercial service.  It
              should be remembered that such a continuous widespread
              network R&D environment would provide wide spread training
              experience for graduate students that would otherwise be
              unavailable.

              Initial seed money would come from public funds. However,
              the bulk of support could come from a percentage of
              profits (as cash or in kind contributions) that
              participating companies would be required to contribute to
              the CPN as the price of admission for developing and
              benefiting from new technology.  Care should be taken in
              structuring contributions in a way that small start-up
              firms would not be locked out.  To ensure this, Congress
              could mandate that the CPN commissioners (perhaps with
              appropriate oversight from the National Academy of
              Sciences, the IEEE, or the ACM) develop a plan to ensure
              that the cost of entry to such a testbed not exceed the
              capitalization of the current small commercial players.

              It could also require the development of proposals to
              handle the issues of interconnection billing, billing for
              actual use versus size of connection, and interoperability
              among network providers.

              A different financing model could be explored if the CPN
              were instructed to report on the feasibility of selling
              shares to commercial carriers in a national networking
              testbed and R&E network where carriers could, over a long
              term basis, develop and mature new networking technologies
              before transferring them to the commercial marketplace.