1996-01-29
Craig A. Johnson
This is illuminating reading, and a propos to the ongoing discussion
of where the Internet is headed. The auto companies are only the
first in line to harnass the Net.
As Gordon states, "Their hope is for the creation of an ISP
certification agency that would monitor and report on ISP service
quality on an ongoing basis. ... if neither the Internet industry
nor national governments create what is needed, then industry itself
can - in the form of an Internet Quality Association designed to
look out after industry's interests."
--caj
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Date sent: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 00:07:19 -0600
From: Gordon Cook <•••@••.•••>
To: Multiple recipients of list <•••@••.•••>
Subject: February COOK Report - Auto industry to seek ISP certification
Excerpt from Gordon Cook's February "Cook Report on Internet"
Auto Industry Aims To Impose Certification on ISPs, pp. 1 -5
This will likely be the year when "industry" makes its mark on the
Internet. In an, as yet, little noticed column in the January 16, 1996
issue of Network Computing, Robert Moskowitz calls on industry to regard
the Internet as a "rough hewn gem and play the role of the gem cutter."
Moskowitz is network architect at Chrysler and member of the Internet
Architecture Board. His agenda must be taken very seriously.
For much of the past year, Ford, Chrysler and GM, the Big Three of the
auto industry, have been exploring ways to shape the Internet to their
growing need to have seamless total communications (CAD/CAM, EDI, email
and mail lists, etc) with every one of its thousands of suppliers. The
Big Three's initial thought was to put out an RFP for a virtual private
network (VPN) where suppliers could be gathered, and quality and security
of network performance assured. However, from evidence that we have
reviewed, it seems that a planning group at the AIAG (Automotive Industry
Action Group) concluded that such a network -- named the Automotive
Network eXchange (ANX), -- would have been of unprecedented size and cost
and therefore unworkable.
The data networks of the Big Three are a mission critical source of
information, the "oxygen" necessary to their very existence. Interfacing
their suppliers to the same kind of mission critical network would be the
source of maximum pay off for their substantial investment in network
technologies since 1990. If they couldn't get an industry-wide,
vertically integrated network of mission critical quality, they'd head as
far in that direction as their finances and technology would allow.
Consequently their thinking turned towards something only slightly less
ambitious: an outsourcing entity to run a special network exchange point
to interconnect the Internet Service Providers their suppliers used and
to certify their quality.
But, by the beginning of this year the plan for a special NAP had been
dropped and the key mixture that remained was (1) the establishment of
quality of service criteria for the Internet Service Provider industry,
(2) a requirement for parts suppliers who wanted to do business with the
Big Three to get on the Internet as soon as possible, and (3) an interest
in creating an independent body to set quality of service standards and
monitor how those networks providing service were complying with the
standards. The fact that, if parts suppliers are interpreted narrowly,
10,000 companies are involved, and, if broadly, some 100,000 was seen as
an "economic hammer" to get the attention of large Internet Service
Providers directed away from the current business model of best effort,
store and forward delivery of packets.
Reports reaching us say that the auto industry folk are leaving nothing
to chance and encouraging the petroleum and banking industries to impose
similar rules on the companies they are dealing with. There is some talk
of a meeting of industry users to discuss quality standards as early as
this May. They would like parts of the federal government to assist them
in moving towards their goals. But so far the federal response does not
look promising. Their hope is for the creation of an ISP certification
agency that would monitor and report on ISP service quality on an ongoing
basis. As Moskowitz points out in his article, if neither the Internet
industry nor national governments create what is needed, then industry
itself can - in the form of an Internet Quality Association designed to
look out after industry's interests. The AIAG white paper outlining
these plans has a tentative release date of February 1 .
We are looking at the emergence of a situation where more and more of
industry's business will have to be done on the public Internet simply
because network links are becoming so pervasive that the public Internet
is the only entity that can accommodate the breadth and depth of
anticipated use.
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