🚀 go-pugleaf

Trevis C. Lawton (tc@iinet.com.au) wrote:
: In article <3at637$pqn@inferno.mpx.com.au>
: avatar@jolt.mpx.com.au (Andrew Pam) writes:

: > At present, our server is costing us a significant amount of money in AARnet
: > volume charges - and as our traffic continues to grow exponentially in
: > parallel with the growth of Internet usage, it will become increasingly hard
: > to justify these costs when it would be much simpler to move our server
: > off-shore to a country without volume charges, or at least more favourable
: > charges than those available here.
: > 
: > Is this what we want for Australia?  Do we want to encourage all our future
: > online publishers to move off-shore?  It certainly seems that way.



: OK, but you said it all - you are a COMMERCIAL enterprise. Are you
: suggesting that you should be able to make money out of something paid
: for by AARNet without copping your side of the costs?

No, but I am suggesting that if Australia wants to play the game, we might
want to pay for a playing field in this country, or all our players will be
competing at overseas venues.  More support from the federal government,
perhaps in line with the leaders such as Singapore and the US, would be
very welcome.

Also, where do you draw the lines?  We are a mixture of non-profit
(www.efa.org.au), fundamental research (Xanadu) and commercial (Glass Wings,
which is still in the start-up stages and not yet turning a profit).
Should we be buying three Internet links, or just paying different rates
on the one link depending on the domain name of origin?

: The running of such a network is a huge financial responsibility for
: AARNet, and whilst I did not jump for joy upon the entrance of volume
: charging, I could understand and accept the reasons for it. Someone has
: to pay for the network, and why should it be the universities that pick
: up the bill for your commercial enterprise?

I do not believe that the universities should pay for commercial enterprises,
including our own commercial operations.  However, I believe that AARnet are
distorting the natural economics of the Internet with their extremely
ill-conceived and badly implemented charging scheme.  The Internet was built
upon principles of openness, trust and mutual cooperation, and I believe it
is only suitable for businesses willing to work within such a system.

I do not believe that the underlying technology of IP is at all suited to
secure, detailed accounting.  I believe that businesses looking for that kind
of service will shortly have a host of other options such as BT Concert,
eWorld, and the Microsoft Network (to name a few).

The Internet is predicated upon the assumptions that every place is equally
close (no marginal cost for distance), and that everyone is an equal member
of the net with something to contribute.  By violating those traditions,
understandable as the motivations may be, I believe that AARnet are doing
severe damage to the spirit of the net.  This is particularly sad since
I believe that the Internet is not merely a university resource that is
inexplicably costing more and more to sustain, but is actually the best hope
for the future they have.

We used to believe in the right of everyone in this country to be educated
to the extent of their desire and abilities.  Increasing student fees and
taxes such as HECS are moves away from this ideal, while Open Learning is
a move towards it.  Anyone who has used the Internet for a while will
recognise that net.culture is, by and large, university culture.  Surely
one can envisage that universities might be able to use the net to evolve
towards research and teaching centres with most students accessing most
of the information resources (their books, research journals and papers,
lectures, email and live chats with professors and fellow students in
their field worldwide) over the net from their own homes, using the
university facilities only for lab work, other physical resources and
social meetings.  This might allow more students than before to learn at
a lower infrastructure cost to the university.  With this future in mind,
I don't see how the universities can afford not to fund the Internet.

Therefore:

1.  While I understand the need to fund the overseas link, I think it should
    be cross-subsidised by domestic traffic, with all traffic charged at the
    same rate.  While charging more for international traffic may encourage
    more efficient use of the local facilities, it will also inevitably lead
    to attempts to use other organisations as proxies to bear the international
    surcharge.  The IP protocols are chock-full of ways to do this; they were
    never designed for this kind of charging, and without completely
    re-designing most of the existing protocols and network applications, the
    technical problems cannot be solved.

2.  I do not believe that traffic sent should be charged, as it becomes an
    enormous disincentive to provide information services, something I would
    think we are trying to encourage in this country.  I note also that
    although universities and the CSIRO are explicity excluded from this,
    secondary schools have to pay commercial prices.

3.  I do not believe volume charging is well suited to the Internet as
    currently designed and implemented.  However, if there are no other
    workable alternatives, it would be acceptable if not for the bizarre
    way in which AARnet have implemented it.  I realise there are
    technical difficulties involved, but I do not see how a charging scheme
    can be introduced before they are solved.  Customers are being billed
    for packets whether or not they receive them in some cases, and
    based on random sampling which is impossible to accurately estimate.

: The ones who will be worst hit are those places that run charity sites
: and charge no-one for anything.

That accurately describes most of our site so far, with the exception of
our PolyEster Records & Books and Myers' Gourmet Popcorn home pages.

: Besides, volume charging is coming around the world. It may not have
: hit the US yet, but it is imminently expected. Even our own Oz
: universities will be paying volume charges before the end of '95.

Yes indeed, and I think the same arguments apply as outlined above.

: If you want to blame someone, why not blame your own provider, they
: didn't have to pass on the volume charging to you, they could have
: soaked it up - But then it wouldn't be long before they went out of
: business would it?

In fact they have not yet passed on any charges to us, but I am somewhat
concerned as to how long they can continue to be so kind, as you suggest.
If we are able to attract sufficient sponsorship, advertising and support,
we intend to pay whatever the charges may happen to be in this country,
but if there is insufficient interest in having our own local equivalent
to the US online publishers we will be forced to move our operations to
a more favourable climate where the playing fields are tilted a little more
in our direction.

Apologies for the length, but this issue is very important to me.

Share and enjoy,
		*** AVATAR ***

--
Andrew Pam                                      avatar@aus.xanadu.com
Manager, Serious Cybernetics                    avatar@jolt.mpx.com.au
Coordinator, Xanadu Australia                   <http://www.aus.xanadu.com/>
P.O. Box 409, Canterbury VIC 3126 Australia     gopher gopher.aus.xanadu.com