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Paper on Prospects for NSF's International Internet Services

  • From: Steve Goldstein
  • Date: Fri May 05 15:52:36 1995

I have submitted a paper for INET'95 that might be of interest:

    <URL:http://inet.nttam.com/HMP/PAPER/178/html/paper.html>

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"Future Prospects for NSF's International Connections Program Activities"

Steven N. Goldstein <[email protected]>

Abstract

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) plans for ensuring that the U.S.
research and education (R&E) communities will continue to be able to
interact over the Internet with colleagues and resources abroad are
discussed. NSF has recently transitioned from the custom-provided NSFNET
Backbone national transit service for mid-level networks to service
provision by several interconnected general purpose ("commercial") Internet
service providers. It is anticipated that the plan for international
services will be to "ratchet" up the capacity of transoceanic links well
beyond the current T1/E1 levels, while minimizing NSF's role in direct
service provision, much as NSF has done in the case of domestic service. In
addition, NSF's role in facilitating the Internet connectivity of other
countries in support of the R&E communities is likely to continue, and
demonstration projects in advanced international-scale telecommunications
technologies may also be supported.


...


At this writing, the precise path to those ends is far from clear. However,
a new solicitation for International Internet Services (IIS) has been
drafted and is undergoing internal review. Regarding the IIS solicitation,
NSF is considering multiple awards in as many as four categories:

   High-Bandwidth (at least 34 Mbps) Production-Quality Services,
   International Internet Connectivity Services,
   High Bandwidth (at least 155 Mbps) Experimental Service &
Demonstrations, and
   Emerging Technology Experimental Service & Demonstrations.

The following sections provide a glimpse into NSF's thinking about the new
IIS, but it should be understood that these thoughts are preliminary and
unofficial.
    ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^
...
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There is no way of knowing how long it will take to complete the management
reviews and to issue the solicitation, or if the solicitation(s) will
emerge in one or in several separate pieces (i.e., subsets of the four
categories of services above).  We are _targeting_ late May/early June for
issuing the solicitation in hopes of being able to make an award, following
receipt and review of proposals, by the end of CY1995.

cheerz,

Steve G.

 ================================================================
  Steven N. Goldstein

  Program Director, Interagency & International Networking Coordination
  Div. of Networking and Communications Research & Infrastructure
  National Science Foundation
  4201 Wilson Boulevard, Room 1175
  Arlington, VA  22230
  Tel: +1-703-306-1949 (Extension 1119)
  FAX: +1-703-306-0621
  [email protected]
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