On Sun, Feb 24, 2002 at 11:33:54PM -0500, Joe Abley wrote:
The answer I'm starting to hear is that there are no technical advantages to Internet2 over the existing mesh of commercial providers; the advantages are that the bandwidth is free. This is confusing; sooner or later someone pays for the bandwidth. Lighting up glass under the Pacific is never going to be free. Digging up the road will never be free. If the end-users aren't paying for the bandwidth directly, then taxpayers are presumably funding it.
While not too familiar with the details, the big difference is that
Internet2 is a network owned by its customers, the universities,
whereas a for-profit company would charge higher and based on utilization.
So it is not directly "for free", but for the effective cost of operating
the net. Mind you that there is quite some debate going on in the US, some
people (influential ones) think that Internet2 should declare itself
an ISP openly, primarily due to the nature of the traffic carried and
the way that people get connected.
Joerg
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Joerg B. Micheel Email: