The pursuit of netness status as of 23 Apr 93 Tom Jennings NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, Little Garden AND RAINnet members only! As you know we're looking for a new network IP carrier, aka service provider. This is an update on the story so far, with minimal history. On the 15th of March we started persuing our options. We contacted BARRnet first, and arranged a meeting. John Gilmore, Tim Pozar and I met with Bill Yount and [name] of BARRnet. We discussed our general parameters, 22 or so independent sites, wanting T1 or part thereof, and the ability to continue to connect new members as we have been, as well as be able to connect 56K (or greater) links as we see fit. Bill then proposed that we become, essentially, part of BARRnet. We were seen as a resource to get at those pesky, slow-speed and apparently more-trouble-than-they're-worth analog-link nets (not dialup). He said while they were not immediately profitable, they very frequently upgrade to 56K and became real customers. He'd provide us with routers and such. We told him how we connect members with whatever hardware they come up with, and that we charge $70/mo for membership. This visibly bothered him. When John reiterated what we really wanted was raw IP "pipe", they kept repeating the offer for "Level 2 Service Providers" ie. NETCOM type shell-account and added-service providers. John pointed out this is exactly what we have now and want to get away from. After we left and discussed this further amongst ourselves, it was obvious there was no advantage for us in becoming BARRnet's "low-speed" arm. We might be able to arrange a workable deal if we were to freeze TLG, but that's obviously not what we want. At this point I offered to contact other IP carriers (my new phrase for them, since that is how I want them to treat us). I poked around with some of the smaller providers, before I realized they all bought their connections from BARRnet, ANS, CERF, etc. So that's who I went for. During this time John, Tim and I all joined Randy Bush's toasternet mailing list. Randy operates a toasternet very similar to TLG in many ways, up in Portland, called RAINnet. They have about 35 sites, only four of which are directly connected to the Internet, because their arrangement with Alternet is very restrictive. They have an immediate need to expand as well. In many ways they are better organized and documented, but their history is quite different. Check out gopher.psg.com for info on RAINnet. Anyways, we got this hare-brained idea of running a connection of some sort between us, TLG to RAINnet, and establishing a connection to CIX at our end, and splitting the costs. A first pass at the arithmatic seemed reasonable. This was, and still is, a major option being investigated. It would turn two smallish networks into a three-state regional network, definitely not something that can be ignored. We hope. So I started to contact three IP carriers in parallel: ANS, CIX and CERFnet. Questions and responses to these three overlapped in time. ANS: Some TLG members had friendly contacts within ANS, and though ANS' reputation seemed somewhat awful, they are well-connected. I contacted them and laid out our story (22 sites, self-contained, want to expand, etc). ANS would love to help us, and they explicitly address IP reselling. Everything is great -- if these monthly prices sound OK to you: $3000 for 150Kbps, $4600 for 460Kbps, $5833 for 1536Kbps (T1, depending on utilization). Hmm. CIX: they courted us also, saying they love to handle networks like ours, and all that, like ANS did. However they seem to really mean it. Unlike the others, CIX is not "one stop shopping" (everyone else seems to like to use that actual phrase). CIX is not an IP carrier, but merely a round table where the members interconnect, and leave their guns at the door. For $10,000 per year ($833/mo), not including line charges, you get a connection to the CIX-West router in Santa Clara, through which you can connect to all other CIX members, including NEARnet these days. However it doesn't get you anywhere else, like NSFnet and the rest of the planet. For this, you have to make specific arrangements with someone who is otherwise connected. Like ANS, CERF, Alternet... More on this below. CERF: They also have an explicit IP-reseller policy, and it seems quite reasonable and free from traps. They are just reformulating their policy on customers like us. Here is what John Lancia told me over the phone: $4000 one time install charge (includes Cisco router at OUR end as well $2000/month not including lines $350/mo T1 line from MV to their POP in LA Includes NSFnet etc connections. There is also a $1000 annual ($83/mo) fee for connecting 'leased line customers', ie. 56K. I asked about 14.4K-type members; he didn't have a number for that, but he guess $50 a year. I am waitign to hear back from him on this item. I mentioned the possibility of us lumping all of our 14.4K-type members instead as a single 56K customer, ie. each of our (additional) POPs. He said that's a possibility. The datasheet he sent me lists 'CERF 1544 Pricing' differently, slightly lower but is not a 'reseller' price. Whatever, these points will get put in writing when necessary. More on CIX: OK so for about $1200/month (assuming about $350/mo for the wire) we can talk to CIX members. Only. To get that other little detail (the rest of the planet) we need to have a connection to a carrier that'll get us to those places, such as ANS, Alternet etc. My reasoning, not backed up with any facts, is that if we have an electrical connection to CIX-West, and therefore have a data path to most if not all of the national carriers, the final, missing component is to make an arragement with one of them to provide a path for us to NSFnet and the rest of the planet. I have no idea how this works, and I suspect it's not a very common request, since there's so few networks coming online in this manner. I don't know what it will cost. However I think we can make guesstimates based upon BARRnet's 'Expanded Routing Service'. In their ASCII datasheet they describe in some detail our exact situation (though assuming of course we're a fixed-size, largish customer). The need to get to CIX-connected networks, as well as NSFnet sites; it covers the need for assymetric routes; how BARRnets routers handle the various destinations; and how this service doesn't get you around having to comply with NSF AUP when you talk to NSF, etc. They base this cost initially at 15% of the annual fee, which fee depending on the size of the customer making this a bit convoluted like this sentence, suffice to say that the fee, for T1-connected customers, runs from $950/year (< $1M) to $2540/year (> $1G). Assuming we were a $10M org, which we're definitely not, this would work out to $110/month. Initially. In later months the fee would be adjusted to actual packet usage. The actual sentence used is a bit revealing: "This fee may be adjusted in subsequent years based on traffic between BARRNet and the other networks or negotiated 'settlement' charges among the participating commercial networks." So it sounds to me that CIX members arrange this sort of thing all the time. And armed with this number, I will try to dig up what various IP carriers will try to charge us. Maybe someone with an "in" at CIX could help us here? If (BIG IFF) we can make a reasonable arrangement for let's say $100/month, this brings us to a total of $1300 or so per month, including CIX membership, T1 to CIX-West (guesstimate), and packet services to NSFnet. And complete autonomy. AND IF we can find a "cheap" connection from Portland Oregon to Mountain View California, we can connect RAINnet and The Little Garden into Rainy-Garden Net. Cheap= (maximum we're willing to pay total) - $1300, assuming of course that's the final number. Not including up-front costs. While this is going on, I just started to contact the people who string all the wires about the leased-line from Portland to Mountain View. Any leads here greatly apprciated. Our Pacific Hell person says that Cable & Wireless is based in Portland or has connects here to there, and that WilTel handles Frame Relay, which is a sort-of packet-addressed Fractional-T1-like thing that may suit this connection better. And this completely ignores our little brainstorm of dragging FidoNet (and whomever) in with us to share leased-line costs by making arrangements to haul FidoNet backbone (== Usenet backbone) data along our routes. I know their phone bills run into multi-hundreds per month, and we would provide a full-time connection that would not only make delivery faster for FidoNet, it would lessen the store-and-forward pileups that happen when a link gets plugged/goes down. I certainly won't have time to persue this until later. I have logs of all my conversations with ANS, CERF, CIX, etc. I left out a lot of details in an attempt to convey this story, such as tables of numbers and such, and who said what to whom. We also haven't burned any bridges, nor told anyone to get lost. This world is messy enough that it's likely that I'll talk to Alternet, and ask them if we could arrange to carry traffic to NSFnet, as CIX peers. The last large step in choosing which major option (simple customer, CIX peer, etc) is finding the cost of a leased-line to Portland. If it's $3000, Rainy Garden dries up. If it's $1000 we're in business. We'll see.