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>From alt.cyberpunk Wed May 18 10:55:26 1994
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From: achen1@csupomona.edu (ALAN CHEN)
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Subject: This could ruin your day.
Date: 15 May 94 23:45:03 PST
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This is a document thats been kicking around our local system at Cal Poly
for the last two days; I think its important enough to ask all of you
to read it.  Please take to time to do so as it is an issue that affects
the future of the net as we know it.  

Alan Chen
(Pre) Occupations:        |"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
-Aerospace eng. undergrad |              -L. Long (RAH)
-RPG player               |Yes, I'm an ARO.  No, I'm not transferring!
-Dreamer                  |Email: achen1@csupomona.edu
GE -p+ c++ l(+) u- e+(*) m+(*) s !n+(-) h(-) f+ !g w-(--) t+ r++ y? 

--------------------------------
 Subject: Metered Usage of the Internet: JSN

 Please forgive the mass mailing, but I feel this is a subject
 which is of great importance to anyone who benefits from the
 bountiful resources of the Internet.

 A very bad storm is brooding on the horizon.

 In the future, you might have to pay a charge for every E-mail
 message you send or receive, every Usenet article you read,
 every kilobyte of data you transfer with ftp, every hypertext
 link you follow with NCSA Mosaic or Gopher...

 Hopefully this frightens you as much as it does me.
 But it will happen, unless YOU do something about it.

 Please read the attached, fill out the requested info, and
 mail it back to mike@essential.org.  It also wouldn't hurt to
 forward a copy of this to everyone you know on the Internet.

 Thanks for your support.

 Craig Smith, <bcs@cs.tamu.eduor <craig@stat.tamu.edu
 Texas A&M University, Dept. of Computer Science
 205 HRBB, 862-2084 (CPSC).   [PGP2 Public Key Available on Request]
 ---

 TAXPAYER ASSETS PROJECT - INFORMATION POLICY NOTE
 May 7, 1994

 -    Request for signatures for a letter to NSF opposing metered
      pricing of Internet usage

 -    Please repost this request freely

 The letter will be sent to Steve Wolff, the Director of
 Networking and Communications for NSF.  The purpose of the letter
 is to express a number of user concerns about the future of
 Internet pricing.  NSF recently announced that is awarding five
 key contracts to telephone companies to operate four Internet
 "Network Access Points" (NAPs), and an NSF funded very high speed
 backbone (vBNS).  There have been a number of indications that
 the telephone companies operating the NAPs will seek permission
 from NSF to price NAPs services according to some measure of
 Internet usage.  The vBNS is expected to act as a testbed for new
 Internet pricing and accounting schemes.  The letter expresses
 the view that metered pricing of Internet usage should be
 avoided, and that NSF should ensure that the free flow of
 information through Internet listserves and file server sites is
 preserved and enhanced.

   Jamie Love, Taxpayer Assets Project (love@essential.org; but
      unable to answer mail until May 15).  Until then, direct
      inquires to Michael Ward.

 If you are willing to sign the letter, send the following
      information to Mike Ward of the Taxpayer Assets Project
      (mike@essential.org, fax: 202/234-5176; voice: 202/387-8030;
      P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036):

 Names:    ___________________________
 Title:    ___________________________   (Optional)
 Affiliation:   ____________________________________
 (for purposes of identification only)
 Address:       ______________________________________
 City; St, Zip  ________________________________
 Email Address: _____________________________________
 Voice:         __________________________________
 for verification)

                             The letter follows:

 Steve Wolff
 Director
 Division of Networking and Communications
 National Science Foundation
 1800 G Street
 Washington, DC  20550

 Dear Steve:

 It is our understanding that the National Science Foundation
 (NSF) and other federal agencies are developing a new
 architecture for the Internet that will utilize four new Network
 Access Points (NAPs), which have been described as the new
 "cloverleaves" for the Internet.  You have indicated that NSF is
 awarding contracts for four NAPs, which will be operated by
 telephone companies (Pac Bell, S.F.; Ameritech, Chicago; Sprint,
 NY; and MFS, Washington, DC).  We further understand that NSF has
 selected MCI to operate its new very high speed backbone (vBNS)
 facility.

 There is broad public interest in the outcome of the negotiations
 between NSF and the companies that will operate the NAPs and
 vBNS.  We are writing to ask that NSF consider the following
 objectives in its negotiations with these five firms:

      PRICING.

 We are concerned about the future pricing systems for Internet
 access and usage.  Many users pay fixed rates for Internet
 connections, often based upon the bandwidth of the connection,
 and do not pay for network usage, such as the transfer of data
 using email, ftp, Gopher or Mosaic.  It has been widely reported
 on certain Internet discussion groups, such as com-priv, that the
 operators of the NAPs are contemplating a system of usage based
 pricing.

 We are very concerned about any movement toward usage based
 pricing on the Internet, and we are particularly concerned about
 the future of the Internet Listserves, which allow broad
 democratic discourse on a wide range of issues.  We believe that
 the continued existence and enhancement of the Internet
 discussion groups and distribution lists is so important that any
 pricing scheme for the NAPs that would endanger or restrict their
 use should be rejected by the NSF.

 It is important for NSF to recognize that the Internet is more
 than a network for scientific researchers or commercial
 transactions.  It represents the most important new effort to
 expand democracy into a wide range of human endeavors.  The open
 communication and the free flow of information have make
 government and private organizations more accountable, and
 allowed citizens to organize and debate the widest range of
 matters.  Federal policy should be directed at expanding public
 access to the Internet, and it should reject efforts to introduce
 pricing schemes for Internet usage that would mimic commercial
 telephone networks or expensive private network services such as
 MCI mail.

 To put this into perspective, NSF officials must consider how any
 pricing mechanisms will change the economics of hosting an
 Internet electronic mail discussion groups and distribution
 lists.  Many of these discussion groups and lists are very large,
 such as Humanist, GIS-L, CNI-Copyright, PACS-L, CPSR-Announce or
 Com-Priv.  It is not unusual for a popular Internet discussion
 group to have several thousand members, and send out more than
 100,000 email messages per day.  These discussion groups and
 distribution lists are the backbones of democratic discourse on
 the Internet, and it is doubtful that they would survive if
 metered pricing of electronic mail is introduced on the Internet.

 Usage based pricing would also introduce a wide range of problems
 regarding the use of ftp, gopher and mosaic servers, since it
 conceivable that the persons who provide "free" information on
 servers would be asked to pay the costs of "sending" data to
 persons who request data.  This would vastly increase the costs
 of operating a server site, and would likely eliminate many
 sources of data now "published" for free.

 We are also concerned about the types of  accounting mechanisms
 which may be developed or deployed to facilitate usage based
 pricing schemes., which raise a number of concerns about personal
 privacy.  Few Internet users are anxious to see a new system of
 "surveillance" that will allow the government or private data
 vendors to monitor and track individual usage of Information
 obtained from Internet listserves or fileserves.

      ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRACTICES

      We are also concerned about the potential for anti-
 competitive behavior by the firms that operate the NAPs.  Since
 1991 there have been a number of criticisms of ANS pricing
 practices, and concerns about issues such as price discrimination
 or preferential treatment are likely to become more important as
 the firms operating the NAPs become competitors of firms that
 must connect to the NAPs.  We are particularly concerned about
 the announcements by PAC-Bell and Ameritech that they will enter
 the retail market for Internet services, since both firms were
 selected by NSF to operate NAPs.  It is essential that the
 contracts signed by NSF include the strongest possible measures
 to insure that the operators of the NAPs do not unfairly
 discriminate against unaffiliated companies.

 Recommendations:

 As the Internet moves from the realm of the research community to
 a more vital part of the nation's information infrastructure, the
 NSF must ensure that its decisions reflect the needs and values
 of a much larger community.

 1.   The NSF contracts with the NAPs operators will include
      clauses that determine how the NAP services will be priced.
      It is important that NSF disclose and receive comment on all
      pricing proposals before they become final.  NSF should
      create an online discussion list to facilitate public dialog
      on the pricing proposals, and NSF should identify its
      criteria for selecting a particular pricing mechanism,
      addressing the issue of how the pricing system will
      impact the Internet's role in facilitating democratic debate.

 2.   NSF should create a consumer advisory board which would
      include a broad cross section of consumer interests,
      including independent network service providers (NSPs),
      publishers of Internet discussion groups and distribution
      lists, academic networks, librarians, citizen groups and
      individual users.  This advisory board should review a
      number of policy questions related to the operation of the
      Internet, including questions such as the NAP pricing, NAP
      operator disclosure of financial, technical and operational
      data, systems of Internet accounting which are being tested
      on the vBNS and other topics.

 3.   NSF should solicit public comment, though an online
      discussion group, of the types of safeguards against
      anticompetitive behavior by the NAPs which should be
      addressed in the NSF/NAPs contracts, and on issues such as
      NAPs pricing and Internet accounting systems.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 TAP-INFO is an Internet Distribution List provided by the Taxpayer
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