Previous | Table of Contents | Next |
Originally, the Internet backbone network was designed, deployed, operated, managed and owned by various government, educational, and R&D institutions. In large part, ownership is now on a private, commercial basis. The network is a series of dedicated backbone networks owned variously by public and private organizations, and involving circuits that interconnect numerous hosts and subnetworks. While the backbones operated at 56 Kbps until fairly recently, they generally have been upgraded to DS1 or DS3, with some upgraded to much higher speeds. ANS and MCI are examples of backbone providers.
Advanced Networks and Services (ANS), a consortium of IBM, MCI, and Merit Network, owns a substantial part of the backbone network. ANS also provides access to NSFNET and is the access provider of choice for many Fortune 1000 companies [13-7].
MCI announced (March, 1995) a 5-year, $50 million relationship with the NSF to built a very-high-speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS) running over an ATM/SONET backbone at 155 Mbps (OC-3), with plans to upgrade to 622 Mbps (OC-12). The network will connect the Pittsburgh and San Diego (CA) Supercomputing Centers, Cornell Theory Center (Ithaca, NY), the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (Urbana, IL) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO). Initially, access service also will be offered in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. [13-8] and [13-9]. MCI also announced (June 1996) plans to meld its backbone with that of BT (British Telcom) under the umbrella of their Concert joint venture. The offshore links will run at 45 Mbps [13-10].
At a minimum, the full-fledged Internet user requires a 486 PC capable of supporting a Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI); a Macintosh computer will also do the trick. Lots of memory (both RAM and hard drive) are most helpful. As speed is important, a 28.8 Kbps modem is ideal for access over analog lines. To get the full benefit of sound and color graphics, it is necessary to equip the terminal with a color monitor, speakers, and a sound card. Such a PC can be had for $1,000 or so, although a full multimedia PC with a large color monitor, CD-ROM and all the other niceties easily is in the range of $2,500. If ISDN circuits are to be employed (better quality and higher speed), an ISDN Terminal Adapter must be added in the form of either an internal PC card or standalone unitthe additional cost begins in the range of $100 to $250, plus the additional cost of the circuit. Large users, of course, also require the appropriate routers and other devices, which they may already have in place. On the other hand, access to the Net may require more such equipment, as another network is being added to the mix in support of additional applications and additional associated traffic. The router also should include security in the form of a firewall (discussed later in this chapter) to provide protection against hackers and the like. Clearly, this is not an inexpensive proposition.
Help is on the way. A number of manufacturers over the past few years have proclaimed the emergence of much less expensive devices known variously as diskless workstations, Net devices, Net readers, Internet terminals, Net stations. Reminiscent of the dumb terminals of the old mainframe days, these devices would have little or no processing power or storage capacity. Rather, they would have the ability to access the Internet and World Wide Web, and support a highly-pleasing GUI. All of the serious processing power would reside in the network, as would all storage capacity. Serious computer users are unlikely to embrace such a device, although casual users might accept it if the price is low enough. Costs are anticipated to be in the range of $500, although there is discussion of terminals at half that price. Manufacturers developing such devices include Oracle Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Apple Computer Inc., IBM, Web Book Inc., SunRiver Corp. and Japan Computer Corp. [13-11] through [13-17].
While the number of Internet users is growing at unbelievable rates, not everyone has access. In this Information Age, there is great concern about creating a new class system of the information haves and have-nots. In an attempt to address this issue, there is great debate about subsidizing some level of universal service, much as was assured in the 1930s for the PSTN. With the goal of providing access to every American school by the year 2000, $36 million was raised from private sources in 1995, with matching funds from the U.S. government sources. Additionally, various carriers have offered special access rates and some manufacturers have donated equipment or offered special discounts [13-18].
Access to the Internet can be accomplished on any number of bases. Access can be over a dedicated or dialup circuit, through a direct connection or through an intermediate service provider [13-19]. The performance of the connection depends on the amount of bandwidth access provided and the nature of the access loop.
Terminal access via dialup connection is provided by a number of Information Service Providers, who provide content, as well as access. America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy fall into this category, with their retail rates and content providers listed in Table 13.2. Additionally, there exists a huge number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which focus solely on the access business. Public access providers provide access on a leased line basis.
Previous | Table of Contents | Next |