Hi Don,
More comments inline below.
On 06/08/2012 03:36 PM, Don Fanning wrote:
No, I would
definitely not decline, I would be happy to accept, as
long as it is free for non-commercial use.
So here is the flaw in your logic. These educational and
scientific organizations are not in the business of
maintaining physical circuits. That is left to the
Level3's, Vodafone's and Cogent's of the world. Each of
these organizations lease circuits and dark fiber from them.
None of them have laid a single piece of cable from one
country to another (with perhaps the exception being CERN).
They are in the business of Science! Not
telecommunications. At some point you are left with peering
on a commercial network broadcasting your routes.
Either I am unclear or you haven't got it. I would accept free
transit from anyone, but I wouldnt trust anyone else than hams with
44/8 addresses, not even research and education networks.
Free transit does not involve ham resources.
The fiber optic cable that you use to connect your server
to your storage area network is not the same that goes into
the ground or in the air or under the ocean. Each of those
applications use different cable that is much more
expensive.
Actually the fiber I am referring to can be used both underground,
with or without a duct (if you have no termites eating them) and in
the air (preferably above power lines to protect them from people
believing it is copper inside). Submarine cables are a bit more
expensive, but over distances where you can avoid active amplifiers
(festoon solutions) less than ten times more. Transatantic is about
30 times more, typically 1 USD/inch.
Your analogy of using staff/students to string 16km (9
miles) of fiber while interesting and laudable doesn't
apply. We're talking about 1000's of km of long haul DWDM
fiber optics and the equipment to boost the signal at
regular distances. Depending on where you are running it,
you have to have equipment to run it through km's of conduit
or across oceans where you have to deal with dragnetters.
Yes, the next phase being discussed in Somalia is to interconnect
the metropolitan area links. Garowe - Mogadishu is some 2500 km and
few intermediate stops. The idea is to include a free fiber pair for
research and education, and why not ham activities. The main
challenge is not funding but what trustworthy consortium can be
formed to own it. There is an economical tradeoff between deploying
more fiber and use cwdm/dwdm when there is not enough fiber. cwdm is
cheap.
If multi-million dollar corporations and cities are
having a hard time implementing it, what makes you think a
group of blowhards wearing plastic antennas can do it
better?
Well, it is often easier to do things that are guaranteed not ever
to become commercial than things that definitely are commercial
since everyone wants a piece of the pie. The main roles of
regulators include to collect tax from the market and support public
good aspects. The groups fall in different categories.
While I completely understand your position and agree
with it in some aspect, the fact is that 44net itself is not
a space regulated by the IARU and other than whatever your
country applies to free speech, is not bound to keeping with
non-commercial/non-business rules. It is a allotment of
public network address space. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I am certainly aware of that 44net is not regulated by IARU, but by
ICANN and that IANA and regional registries may be watching us. I am
under the impression, correct me if I am wrong, that the rules
applying to 44net are very unclear since the allocation is unique
and that it might be better to show good conduct rather than ask or
misbehave.
Has anyone asked what rules apply and what was in that case the
answer?
/Bjorn