Last September NTTF, along with nine other organizations, sponsored a workshop in Monterey, California, bringing together representatives from government, higher education and industry to assess progress on the goal of an information infrastructure, not just connectivity. This theme has been the subject of subsequent meetings as well as informal conversations among dissatisfied users of research and education networks and those charged with providing networking to higher education. Yes, there are real performance problems although more work must be done to isolate them and determine the causes. First, popularity has its downside. The overwhelming growth in the demand for Internet services contributes to service deterioration when the services can not keep up with the demand.
Higher education suffers particularly because the uses are frequently time-sensitive.
Even early in the project, steps were taken to improve reliability and performance by adding more circuits. While the shift to competitive services was occurring, there was no change in the underlying technology. The vendors have been relying on 45 Mb since it was first introduced in 1991. Third, bottom-line thinking, rather than requirements for research and education, is governing the deployment of the networking infrastructure. Business volume is so high, that there is not sufficient competition to push prices down or services up.