Again, this can also benefit Abilene participants by making collaborations with Asian and European partners, for example, more effective. Currently, Abilene receives all its revenue from Internet2 members who make use of Abilene as part of the broader Internet2 project, and this revenue is understood to be cost sharing among members. Abilene peers are not members of Internet2. While the user organizations of non-US peers express commitment with Internet2 toward specific goals, this commitment is not the same as is made by Internet2 members. Taking a service provider approach to its peers would push Abilene into a more commercial-like posture.
Potential fees are difficult to establish.
Costs to Abilene of providing transit are difficult to establish, but appear not to be large. Some additional personnel costs might be expected if large numbers of peers move their connections from STAR TAP to Abilene core router nodes, but again, that does not appear to be a large number. Additional administrative costs might be more were Abilene to charge for transit and have to establish administrative accounting mechanisms for supporting such charges. Abilene expects to have no additional costs associated with purchasing circuits to interconnect with peer networks. No changes are proposed to Abilene s current interconnection policies with peer networks.