It was a fun summer for commercial Internet service providers. First they got to worry about how many people really used the Internet (30 million? 3 million? Half a dozen?). Then they got to ponder what would happen when the Commercial Internet eXchange Association (CIX), a nonprofit trade group, began kicking nonmembers off its network.
Internet users think of the CIX, if they think of it at all, as the main alternative backbone for commercial Internet traffic. Formed at a time when the main high-speed lines of the Internet were reserved for academic and scientific networking, the purpose of the CIX was to guarantee commercial connectivity between its members. In late 1992 there were seven CIX members; in January of 1994 there were 25; there are now more than 75. Members include such networking heavyweights as SprintLink, ANS CO+RE, NEARnet, BARRnet, PSInet, and others.
All CIX members promise to interconnect with all other members without charging fees based on the amount of traffic. The CIX runs a technical facility, called a "router," where these connections can occur. This makes the CIX a strong force for universal, unmetered networking.
However, "unmetered" does not mean "free." Although the association recently lowered its annual dues from US$10,000 to $7,500, this is still too much money for many of the tiny home-grown networks born during the past few years. Until recently, the association has relied upon voluntary payment of CIX dues. But on July 14, this year, the association decided that any network that had not paid the CIX would have its traffic stopped at the CIX router. The outcry from the smaller networks was immediate and intense.
Ironically, this decision will have little short-term impact on the Net, since the existence of the CIX has helped support a loose consensus among networks that they should all carry each other's traffic. It remains possible for most networks, large and small, to exchange data without passing through the CIX router. However, with the CIX beginning its crackdown, some CIX members may take steps to rearrange their networking processes to make it harder for nonmembers to get through. And this could be the first step toward the Balkanization of the Internet or toward a completely different system of networking based on metered tolls.
"In the old world it was assumed that we would all carry each other's traffic," says Randy Bush, an Internet old-timer and CIX member who runs the RAINet network in Portland, Oregon. "In the new world these tacit assumptions don't hold anymore."
Individual users tend to picture the Internet as a single, global network. But the Internet is really a collection of independent networks, and the new CIX policy may ultimately increase the number of times in our Internet sessions we see the words "connection refused."
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