Many people appear to use the Internet for free regardless of distance
or volume of traffic. Who does pay?
Faculty members and others in institutions that have connections to the
Internet through their regional networks ordinarily do not see any
charges because most institutions have not chosen to recover their costs
through usage charges to the end user. The institutions are paying for
the connections and services as follows:
* The institutions are investing in their local infrastructure
(networks, workstations, operations, training, software, routers, etc.).
* The institutions pay for access (connectivity) to the NSFNET through
their regional networks (NWNET, SURANET, CICNET, etc.). Those fees are
usually membership fees that provide operations, training, and access.
In addition, the institution usually is paying the regional telephone
company for the high-speed line that connects the campus network to the
regional network.
* The institution may also be paying for the use of information
services (commercial databases) from an information service provider. In
some instances, the charge is a flat fee governed by a maximum number of
users.
* The National Science Foundation has been paying for the cost of the
national backbone (to ANS, MERIT, MCI, and others) that has
interconnected the regional networks (and others) and also has paid for
a portion of the regional network costs. Total costs of networking
include local computer support and local network infrastructure, in
addition to the wide area services. It is estimated that NSF's support
defrays less than 10 percent of the overall networking costs incurred by
institutions.
At institutions that do not have direct connections and are using dial-
up connections, faculty members and others may be already paying usage
fees to Internet service providers. Of course those fees can be usage
based or flat rate based depending on their service provider's approach
(and competition). Currently, out of 3,600 institutions of higher
education, about 1,000 have direct connections to the Internet. A recent
National Commission for Libraries and Information Science survey of
public libraries indicates that approximately 21 percent have Internet
connections, but many of these use dial-up connections.
How can a message containing a million bytes that is sent across the
world be treated the same as one sent within a state containing only a
few lines?
There are several reasons for this. The major costs of lines and routing
remain independent of the volume of use until it is necessary to add
more bandwidth. Furthermore, because of the way that packets may be
routed through different elements and subnetworks, it would be very
difficult and costly to keep track of the actual paths and use.
However, growing traffic and more bandwidth-intensive applications, such
as video and Mosaic, mean that either network bandwidth must increase or
congestion and delays will occur. Other approaches to avoiding
congestion involve establishing priorities or setting different rates
for different types of service.
The costs of increasing bandwidth are closely related to the costs of
switching (which track the computer chip costs). It may be possible to
meet the demand for bandwidth without increasing costs as technological
advances in switching speeds lower bandwidth costs. Because other
factors are involved, however--for instance, regulatory oversight--there
are no guarantees!
Who sets policy for the way that persons connected with an institution
or library pay?
The institution/campus/library determines whether and how the cost
should be recovered (just as for telephone costs or computer costs).
Neither NSF nor the telephone companies set the rates for Internet
services. Such rates are set by Internet service providers, which are
either nonprofit (like most regionals) or commercial.
How will transition to the new NSFNET affect whether faculty members and
others connected with an institution are charged?
Faculty members and others are unlikely to see any changes. Charging is
a policy decision made by the local institution or library.
Institutions may see an increase in the cost of connection (in their
membership fees for regional networks). The increase is not expected to
be more than 10 percent, but there may be anomalies. Although NSF has
assumed that institutions will be able to absorb cost increases at this
level, it also is providing transition funds for the regionals over the
next four years to cushion the impact of those changes. The new
architecture replaces the current single national backbone, NSFNET
(which currently carries the traffic between regional networks), with a
new architecture whereby traffic between regional networks will be
carried by commercial network providers. NSF is funding interconnection
points (called network access points--NAP), which will provide
interconnection for all Internet network service providers.
What are the some of the difficult issues ahead?
Guiding the Internet through another order of magnitude of growth in
addition to providing the stability and increased services necessary
will be difficult. Certain good questions discussed at the recent FARNET
Workshop on the Transition from the NSFNET included:
1. Who will ensure that interconnection is ubiquitous? By what means?
2. How will costs and charges be handled?
3. How will seamless problem solving be achieved?
4. Who will set the ground rules for technical interactions?
5. What is the attitude toward providing enhanced privacy and security?
6. What kind of policy frame-work/governance needs to be established?
What are the policy framework options for resolution of disputes and
issues? How will policy issues and resolution of disputes be handled for
users?
7. What resources are needed to achieve interruption-free service?
8. How will the positive aspects of the Internet culture be preserved?
What are they? Can they be scaled up?
Robert G. Gillespie is an adviser on national policy dealing with
telecommunications and information infrastructure for Educom-Networking
And Telecommunications Task Force and other higher education and library
organizations.