🚀 go-pugleaf

poole@chsun.chuug.ch (Simon Poole) writes:
>Naturally we (EUnet) are very interested in what's going on in Australia
>and we would hope that we see commercial service providers emerge that
>will be viable as partners for us. (Besides the business aspect, it would
>be an good excuse to visit my home country the first time since 33 years
>:-)).

Simon, its not as simple as it should be. AARN "owners" have resisted all
attempts to date that redefined the mandate to include non-research oriented
people as 'peers' 

The motivation is pretty straightforward: They own the network and don't
want to loose control. Commercialization neccessarily dilutes their control
of the resource. There are aspects to migrating a centrally funded 
academic/research network into the wider community which pose 'political'
questions hot-blooded lefties like me find difficult to handle, quite outside
of the issues like user-pays.

Unless/Until AARN opens the doors a bit wider, I think full bore commercial
IP with connectivity back to the USA is a way off. The head of steam needed
to fund the basic links is being used up on the existing network.

-George
--
                         George Michaelson
G.Michaelson@cc.uq.oz.au The Prentice Centre      | There's no  market for
                         University of Queensland | hippos in Philadelphia
Phone: +61 7 365 4079    QLD Australia 4072       |          -Bertold Brecht