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Footnotes
- 1
- Electronic mail from reveiwer to author 9:36 PM, December 16, 1992.
- 2
- Figures are for almost $30,000,000 worth of connections and mid-level
infrastructure grants in FY 1989-1992 Individual grant sheets obtained
under FOIA from NSF.
- 3
- Tom Valovic, Corporate Networks - The Strategic Use of Telecommunications,
Artech House: Boston, 1992, p. 22.
- 4
- Bilal Chinoy and Hans Werner Braun, "The National Science Foundation
Network," 1992, p. 9 and statement by Jordan Becker, ANS vice President,
to Com-priv mail list on December 4, 1992. ANS has talked about the
NSF "exercising its option to upgrade to T-3." This is a misleading
way of stating reality. The NSF Backbone solicitation in 1987 never
asked for an option to upgrade to T-3. MERIT in its proposal to NSF
said it would be happy to provide an upgrade to T-3 in the early 90s
if conditions warranted.
- 5
- Paulette and Richard Mandelbaum, "The Strategic Future of the Mid-Level
Networks," p.18. This paper was given at a December 1990 Conference
on the NREN sponsored by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University.
- 6
- Weis, an IBM Vice President, at this time was responsible for IBM's
involvement in the MERIT cooperative agreement. By his own description
Weis has at this time "world wide responsibility for the strategy, development
and technical support of IBM's large systems for numerically intensive
computing." Supercomputers in other words. See author box on page 7
of Electronic Networking, Volume 2, number 3, Fall 1992.
- 7
- Letter obtained by the author.
- 8
- FARnet stands for the Federation of American Research Networks, an
association made up mostly of mid-level networks.
- 9
- Mandelbaum, op cit, page 18.
- 10
- Mandelbaum, op cit, pp 18-19.
- 11
- Allan H. Weis, "Commercialization of the Internet," Electronic Networking,
Vol. 2, No. 3 (Fall 1992), p. 9.
- 12
- John Markoff, "Discussions Are Held on Fast Data Network," New York
Times, July 17, 1990.
- 13
- Ibid.
- 14
- Dave Hughes of Old Colorado City Communications told the author soon
afterwards of a September 14, 1990 meeting with a network coordinator
who served on several national committees related to the NSFnet. The
meeting was also attended by Sandy Hume, Republican State Senator from
Colorado. On December 5, 1992 Hughes again recounted for the author
what this coordinator said: "the coordinator had been present earlier
that year at a meeting when Weis seemed to recognize for the first time
the window of opportunity. When next he saw Weis he appeared as president
to be of the new ANS venture and the coordinator heard him say that
he had been with IBM to the White House. The implication was that IBM's
backing of Weis' new venture had White House approval, which as Hughes
pointed out to the author could account for the NSF's special handling
of ANS during the months to come."
- 15
- Conversation with author on November 16, 1990 and tape recording
of Weis address to Harvard symposium on December 1, 1990.
- 16
- Date of Duderstadt's Science Board membership ascertained in a December
7, 1992 phone conversation with Telissa Thompson, National Science Board,
NSF. Duderstadt became Chairman of the Science Board in November of
1991.
- 17
- The issue of control of ANS by the NSF (still unresolved) will arise
throughout this article. It would take very dramatic and public form
when on December 4, 1992 Communications Daily would publish an article
stating in effect that everyone involved with the Infrastructure Pool,
the NSF, Merit, and ANS all denied responsibility for it.
- 18
- Mandelbaum, op cit., p. 19.
- 19
- Ibid., p. 20. Yet by June of 1991 he was saying in an interview with
Telecommunications that he wanted to provide turnkey solutions to corporate
commercial T-1 networking needs.
- 20
- Minutes of September 26, 1990 meeting sent by Richard Mandelbaum
to members@farnet.org on Wed. October 10, 1990 at 1:54 PM.
- 21
- IBM is probably Educom's largest monetary supporter.
- 22
- In multiple meetings and conversations between January 1991 and July
of 1991 the author asked Steve Wolff and Jane Caviness, the NSFnet Director
and Deputy Director to quantify these backbone subsidies by mid-level
network. The author was told that it wasn't possible because the subsidies
were buried in other grants. On the com-priv mail list during the summer
of 1991, Wolff would discuss network "yellow stamps" as a means of the
NSF giving backbone connectivity subsidies to mid-levels after the expiration
of the Cooperative Agreement in November 1992.
- 23
- Various officials of several mid-level networks expressed these concerns
to the author between October of 1990 and the summer of 1991.
- 24
- Markoff, op cit., New York Times, July 17.
- 25
- Author's notes November 16, 1990.
- 26
- Judith Axler Turner, "Features of NSF's Computer Network to Be Offered
to More Colleges and to Commercial Companies," Chronicle of Higher Education
September 26, 1990.
- 27
- Telephone conversation with Weis October 19, 1990 as recorded in
author's email on October 20, 1990.
- 28
- Passages quoted are from the transcript of the author's December
1 tape recording of the meeting. the transcript was made by the author
on December 2, 1990 and sent to Al Weis for review on December 5, 1990.
- 29
- Jordan Beker, ANS Vice President to the Com-priv mail list on December
4, 1992.
- 30
- ANSnet/NSFnet T-3 Topology map dated May 29, 1992. A count of the
Fortune 1000 attached to the CIX member networks would show well over
100. Weis seems to have thought that many would move to attach to ANS.
Apparently very few have.
- 31
- Eventually when some of his own supporters criticized his non participation
in the OTA computer conference, he agreed to participate through his
Client Service VP Joel Maloff. Maloff's participation in January 1991
was quite limited.
- 32
- Preceding six paragraphs from the author's tape recording cited above.
- 33
- Data from ANS Form 990, page 1.
- 34
- Email from Steve Wolff to Hans Werner Braun and copied to Eric Aupperle
on November 29, 1990. Received by the author under FOIA on November
30, 1992.
- 35
- The author has asked Hans Werner Braun (now at the San Diego Super
Computer Center), Eric Aupperle, and Jim Williams at MERIT to provide
context for the November 29, 1990 email from Wolff. To date all have
replied that given the passage of time it is difficult for them to remember.
- 36
- Email from Joel Maloff to OTA Computer Conference 9:23AM Friday January
4, 1991.
- 37
- Personal conversation between the author and Steve Wolff at EDUCOM
reception on the evening of January 9, 1991.
- 38
- Maloff email 9:23am Friday January 4, 1991.
- 39
- Steve Wolff, NSFnet Director email to author, July 26, 1991.
- 40
- The author sent the first draft of this study and a copy of ANS's
Form 990 for review to Don Veach, Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge Mass
02138. Mr Veach is an accountant with expertise in public interest accounting.
He found the author's questions to be reasonable and well founded. He
also stated that had ANS used the cash basis of accounting rather than
accrual its net worth would have been substantially greater. He pointed
out that the actual provisioning of the program services activity (providing
and maintaining the network) was apparently carried by MCI and MERIT
with equipment from IBM. In view of this he said that ANS seemed to
be nothing more than an entity established to enable the payment of
salaries and expenses to officers who seemed to be engaged primarily
in the establishment of a profit making commercial subsidiary.
- 41
- Conversation with Robert Kobel, IRS Public Affairs Office on December
8,1992, confirmed in conversation with Mr. Kobel on December 29, 1992.
- 42
- The document, received from the NSF under the Freedom of Information
Act, will be cited as Weis , "A Proposal". It is 12 pages long (five
pages of text and 7 pages of Appendices. ANS was now four months old
and Weis was no longer an IBM employee, yet Weis' network address was
still WEIS@IBM.COM.
- 43
- Weis, "A Proposal," p. 2. Weis' original document does not use numbers. The author has inserted them for clarity.
- 44
- Ibid., p. 3.
- 45
- Ibid.
- 46
- Ibid.
- 47
- Ibid.
- 48
- Conversation between Weis and the author at the Educom Reception
January 9, 1991.
- 49
- Weis, "A Proposal," p. 3.
- 50
- Points 7-9: Ibid.
- 51
- Ibid., pp. 3-4.
- 52
- Ibid., p. 5.
- 53
- For FARnet statement see footnote 6 above.
- 54
- Weis, "A Proposal," pp. 10-11.
- 55
- Ibid., pp. 11-12.
- 56
- Ibid., p. 3.
- 57
- If one counts the full $2,660,000 listed as accounts payable to IBM
as money expended on the network's RS/6000 routers and adds it to the
$7,279, 504 listed as spent on the network, one gets roughly $9,940,000
-- an amount spent of less than $600,000 more than it received from
the US government.
- 58
- Ibid., p. 7.
- 59
- Ibid.
- 60
- Ibid.
- 61
- Email to author 5:54 PM December 21, 1992.
- 62
- The $7,257,349 comes from adding the individual grant amounts released
to the author under FOIA in November 1992. The NSF data base appears
to be both inaccurate and incomplete. The author was sent a printout
of 200 grants covering the fiscal years 1988-1992. In FY 1988 five grants
for the connection of universities to the network had no monetary figures
attached. Three FY 1990 grants were listed without monetary figures.
One was a cost sharing grant to the JVNC Supercomputer Center for the
connection of Nordunet. A second was much more substantial - a 36 month
long grant to MIT (Award Number 9000255) for a Boston node for the NSF
backbone. As was the third - a 36 month long grant to Argonne National
Laboratory (Award Number 9000429) for a new NSFnet backbone. (These
are likely to be in the several hundred thousand dollar range each.)
Then there was Award number 8720904 to MERIT for the backbone in the
amount of $28,850,102 with a duration of 157 months! The announced dollar
amount had been 14.9 million and duration of 60 months.
On the morning of December 21, 1992 the author placed several phones calls to the NSF in order to ascertain what the data on these grant sheets meant.. It turned out that Altie Metcalf in the Grants and Contracts Office was the only person who could help. She was "in" but not available. That afternoon when she had still not returned the authors call, he telephoned again. When she still could not be located, the author asked for the Inspector General's office and left a strongly worded complaint there. Late in the day a Jim Noeth, Deputy Assistant Inspector General for External Affairs called the author who explained that he would like data on the Argonne Grant and MERIT Grant and faxed to Noeth his copy of the MERIT Grant sheet. Noeth told the author that the database showed a dollar for the Argonne Grant but also now showed 60 months for the MERIT grant and a figure of $39,000,000. He said that he would try to get answers for the author's questions by Christmas eve. He did indeed call on the morning of the 24th to say that he thought the MERIT grant sheet read 57 months and that the "one" looked to him like a scratch. [The one is an unmistakable one.] He was unable to say whether the 28 million was the original amount or whether it was an interim figure. The only feedback he had from Ms. Metcalf was regarding the Argonne which probably lacked a monetary figure because it might really exist in several other grants that fell outside the scope of the author's request. When the author asked if Noeth was saying that Argonne National Laboratory had not asked for a sum total amount to make the backbone connect, he suggested that the author write Metcalf a letter with any further questions. When the author expressed exasperation that in three days of looking no one at the NSF could determine what had been spent on the backbone node at Argonne and asked how such a state of affairs was possible, Noeth said that Metcalf could presumably pull the original contract out of the files. He also refused to see that she did this, saying that the author would have to follow the matter up himself.
- 63
- Joel Maloff to OTA Computer Conference on NREN Policy Issues, January
3, 1991. Of course two years later the aggressiveness of ANS schedule
in moving to gigabit services appears to have vanished.
- 64
- Rick Adams, President of UUNET the third founding member of the CIX
was scheduled to be present at the OTA Workshop but was prevented by
illness from attending.
- 65
- This message was first released by Bill Schrader to the com- priv
mail list in early December 1991. It is copied from the author's June
1992 COOK Report on Internet -> NREN.
- 66
- May 30, 1991 date from ANS CO+RE incorporation papers filed in Dover
Delaware.
- 67
- ANS CO+RE press release as quoted in com-priv on June 10, 1991.
- 68
- Telecommunications, June 1991, p. 7.
- 69
- "ANS to Market Internet to Corporate Users," Telecommunications,
July 1991, p. 9.
- 70
- Ibid., p. 12.
- 71
- "Draft: National Research and Education Network A Report to Congress,
December 1992, Submitted by the Director of the Office of Science and
Technology Policy in response to a requirement of the High Performance
Computing ACT of 1991 (P. L. 102-194)", p. 19.
- 72
- Electronic mail from Steve Wolff to the author 2:09 PM May 24, 1991.
- 73
- As announced on the com-priv mail list on August 2, 1991. By December
1992 the CIX had expanded to include two European based commercial service
providers, US Sprint's Sprint Link, and three additional mid-levels
(BARRnet, NEARnet, and JVNCnet).
- 74
- FARnet speech by Maloff posted to com-priv on January 3, 1992 by
Geoff Goodfellow.
- 75
- The Guide was publicly released by ANS shortly after the meeting.
- 76
- Comment on draft of this report by Director of a Mid-level Network,
and member of the ANS Resource Allocation Committee.
- 77
- Posting to com-priv list by Robert Weber on August 18, 1991.
- 78
- This quote and all quotes in the next five paragraphs from the message
signed by Weis and Aupperle and posted from MERIT at noon on December
7, 1991.
- 79
- John Markoff, "Data Network Raises Monopoly Fear," New York Times,
December 19, 1991.
- 80
- Sharon Fisher, "Access Providers: ANS Has Unfair Edge," Communications
Week, December 23, 1991, p.5. In a January 2, 1992 Open Letter to the
Internet Community Weis stated: "Unlike the T-1, the T-3 network was
built to accommodate the needs of NSF sponsored institutions plus other
potential users including commercial users. This additional capacity
was built using ANS funds. Any competitive advantage gained by ANS is
appropriate, considering the risks involved." One would hope that one
could find some evidence of the ANS investment in building the network
in the company's Form 990. Such evidence is difficult to find there.
If the author has analyzed the Form correctly, ANS may have spent less
than $600,000 more on the network than it received from the government.
It seems that an investment in a project of roughly 6% of what was spent
overall that results in significant marketplace advantage is also a
significant leveraging of ANS's funds.
- 81
- Posted to com-priv by the author on December 26, 1991.
- 82
- Name of network changed to protect identity of the author of the
message.
- 83
- Again the name of network is changed to protect the identity of the
author of the message.
- 84
- James Bruce to com-priv on January 3, 1992.
- 85
- John Rugo, NEARNet Business Manager to com-priv on January 9, 1992.
- 86
- Geoff Goodfellow to com-priv on January 17, 1992.
- 87
- Joel Maloff to com-priv on January 23, 1992.
- 88
- The author was told by an operations person at a mid-level network
who did look ups on Orbit and BRS that they were ANS clients. He confirmed
the case of BRS in a telephone conversation with their customer service
desk on December 8, 1992.
- 89
- Interview with Joel Maloff at Telestrategies sponsored conference
on commercialization of the Internet April 22, 1992 as reported in May
1992 COOK Report on Internet -> NREN. In the COOK Report the author,
trying to tone down the tension, paraphrased Maloff as having said that
he believed the CIX did not wish ANS well. His actually words were "out
to destroy ANS".
- 90
- Email from the CEO/Director of a CIX member network to the author
at 9:06 AM December 18, 1992.
- 91
- For some of Mitch Kapor's eloquent testimony at the Hearing see pages
4 and 5 of the COOK Report on Internet -> NREN, April 1992.
- 92
- Peter O'Neil, "Summary Report of the ANS/Regional Advisory Meeting
Held in St. Louis April 15-16, 1992. Released to the author by the NSF
under FOIA. Referred to hereafter as: O'Neil.
- 93
- O'Neil, pp. 1-2.
- 94
- Ibid. pp. 2-3.
- 95
- Ibid., p. 5.
- 96
- Ibid., p. 8.
- 97
- Ibid., pp. 9-10.
- 98
- Ibid., pp. 5-6.
- 99
- Ibid., p. 4.
- 100
- Ibid. p.11.
- 101
- Ibid., pp. 8-9.
- 102
- Ibid., p.10.
- 103
- Ibid., p.11.
- 104
- Ibid., p.12.
- 105
- Ibid., pp. 13-14.
- 106
- Electronic mail received by the author on December 14, 1992.
- 107
- COOK Report on Internet -> NREN, September 1992, p. 19.
- 108
- A summary of the November entries on com-priv regarding the infrastructure
pool appears on pages 12-15 of the December 1992 COOK Report on Internet
-> NREN.
- 109
- Unless otherwise noted all citations for this section are from NSF
FOIA released email between mid October and mid November 1992.
Email from ANS Vice President Guy Almes on November 3, 1992 copied an October 30 memo from Al Weis giving the identity of RAC members as: Eric Aupperle, MERIT, Thomas Bajzek, PREPnet, Alison Brown, OARnet, Patrick Burns Westnet, Dennis Fazio, MRnet, Doug Gale, MIDnet, Eric Hood, NorthWestNet, James Luckett, NYSERNet, Jeffrey Ogden, Michnet, Joe Ragland, Concert, Glenn Ricart SURAnet, John Rugo, NEARnet, Mike Staman, CICnet, Allan Weis, ANS, William Yundt, BARRNet, Donald Zitter, NevadaNet.
This is the first time that those mid-levels that have signed agreements with ANS have been publicly identified.
- 110
- O'Neil, email to RAC, October 15, 1992.
- 111
- Message released to author under FOIA. Reply sent at 8:05 am November
5, 1992.
- 112
- Message released author under FOIA. Received by Wolff's id at 4:23
PM, November 5, 1992.
- 113
- The report states that three members were absent and 12 present but
lists 16 members. Steve Wolff of the National Science Foundation was
not listed among the RAC members.
- 114
- FOIA release to author from NSF.
- 115
- Alison Brown email to Guy Almes and the RAC mail list at ANS 6:09
PM November 4, 1992.
- 116
- Message released to the author under FOIA . Guy Almes to Steve Wolff
at 5:53 PM November 6, 1992. A mid-level Director who is also a member
of the RAC stated that "ANS does not run the Infrastructure pool as
a public trust. It is controlled jointly by ANS and the mid-level networks
with which it has agreements. No government funds are involved and thus
no government oversight is justified. No other public funds are involved
and thus no public disclosure is necessary if the parties choose not
to do so. The NSF is not a member of the Resource Allocation Committee.
Steve Wolff was included from the start, not as a later addition, as
a courtesy to keep him informed. This entire section of your paper is
based on wrong assumptions and is thus in grave error." Email to author
December 21 1:14 PM CST.
- 117
- See the estimate of $250,000 cited above in the December 23, 1991 Communications Week story by Sharon Fisher.
- 118
- Almes to the RAC mail list at 2:16 PM on Friday November 13, 1992.
Released under FOIA.
- 119
- Mike Staman at 7:43 PM November 14, 1992. Released under FOIA.
- 120
- Compliance letter from Eric Aupperle to Steve Wolff, sent to Dr.
Wolff by Jim Williams of MERIT on Tuesday November 24 at 3:30 PM and
released to the author under FOIA. A director of a small Internet services
provider commented in email to the author at 5:43 PM, December 21 1992:
"what is particularly strange is that they don't guarantee it will work
as delivered, but in the same breath claim that whatever additional
load they put on the network will not impact network performance. If
you can't tell whether it works or not how can you measure whether adding
ANS traffic to it will have congested it?"
- 121
- Brock N. Meeks, "NSF Network Fund Has No Accountability Or Govt.
Oversight, Communications Daily," Friday December 4, 1992.
- 122
- Email from Jim Williams, MERIT, at 10:58 AM on December 14 and 12:04
PM December 15, 1992.
- 123
- Email from Jordan Becker, VP of ANS to Steve Wolff at 9:57pm November
6, 1992. Released to the author under FOIA.
- 124
- Email to author at 3:31 PM on December 8, 1992.
- 125
- See "ANS Network Map Shows 29 Attachments from September 1990 to
June 1992, COOK Report on Internet -> NREN, p.15.
- 126
- Email sent to author at 11:09 PM EST December 22, 1992.
- 127
- Joel Maloff, "Selling Internet Service: An Ancient Art Form on a
New Canvas," Electronic Networking, Vol 2, No. 3 Fall 1992, p.19.
- 128
- John Markoff, "Data Network Raises Monopoly Fear," New York Times,
December 19, 1991.
- 129
- "Excerpts from Clinton's Conference on State of the Economy," New
York Times, December 15, 1992. A reviewer sent the author the following
comment: The carriers can build high bandwidth transmission and switching,
but even the best are incredibly dense about how to build a high performance
network system, where performance goes from end to end. The Government
still has the bulk of expertise in this area, and by the government
being a savvy customer, we can insure the system works. If we were simply
captives to the telecom people, and not smart buyers, we'd have to settle
for what they wanted to give us. That would be bad for everyone, because
I doubt the carriers on their own could figure out the whole puzzle.
They just have the wrong type of people working for them. They don't
understand how high performance computing systems work. With some luck,
we can change this by the experiences we all go through pulling the
project together. But right now, no carrier has the expertise to build
a supercomputer networking system on it's own.
- 130
- According to a June 25, 1992 posting to com-priv by Susan Eldred
the Officers of ANS CO+RE are Al Weis, Bob Harris, Al Hoover, and Jim
Parker. The ANS CO+RE Board of Directors is Weis, Harris and Hoover.
- 131
- The network community is no longer as hostile towards ANS as it once
was. Consider the following point of view of the mid- level Director
cited above: "The Internet is somewhat a victim of its success. There
is a lot of credit to go around for that success. Presently, it is working
very well, especially for a project that is on the leading edge of technology,
is as complex a system as it is, involving as many people as it does.
This does not mean that there aren't problems ahead, and indeed, there
will be some significant changes as more players get involved and all
of the issues of privatization, commercialization and multiple backbone
providers evolve. These are issues that are difficult and with which
everyone (NSF, backbone providers, mid-level networks, even universities
and businesses) is grappling. Nobody has the answers yet as we explore
uncharted territory. A lot of the confusions and policy decisions are
because of this. Though blunders may have been made, I do not see any
evil conspiracy on anyone's part, however, as you apparently do. More
mistakes and errors will undoubtedly be made. It is the unavoidable
consequence of a new industry. I think everyone is trying to figure
it out. There is a lot of money involved, so there is a lot of self-interest.
Hopefully, concern for the common good and what is best for the industry
as a whole will win out. It is often argued that competition on the
proverbial "level playing field" provides the best opportunity for advancement.
Well, I don't think that there is any such thing as a "level playing
field" and the metaphor is getting tiring. Someone always has some kind
of advantage due to an environment beyond their own creation and efforts.
I disagree with the competition argument, preferring to stand by the
position of the anthropologist Ashley Montegu who contends that cooperation,
not competition is much more effective. That's what I believe should
happen with our industry. It grew out of cooperative research efforts
and from significant pooled investments from universities, businesses
and government agencies, and it can be a natural evolution for this
cooperative effort to continue. There is money to be made and wealth
to be created at a level that can support many players if nobody gets
greedy and loses sight of the cooperation of the past that produces
our current common good." Email to author 1:14 PM, December 21, 1992.
- 132
- Charles A. Radin, "US Data Highway Gathers Speed," Boston Globe,
Saturday, December 26, 1992
- 133
- "Breaux Awaiting Reaction to Suggestion of Presidential Commission
on Communications," Telecommunications Reports (December 14, 1992),
p. 35.
Note that the first draft of this report was sent for review to twenty network professionals with first hand knowledge of the events described. Substantive comments were received from twelve. MERIT was a reviewer but declined comment. ANS declined an opportunity to review.