Commercial Internet eXchange
Encyclopedia
The Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) was an early interexchange point that allowed the free exchange of TCP/IP traffic, including commercial traffic, between ISPs. It was an important initial effort toward creating the commercial Internet
that we know today.
-defined "acceptable use policy
" on the traffic that could be exchanged; and just as critical, a "no-settlement" policy between the parties exchanging traffic. The no-settlement policy became a "given" during the modern era of the Internet, but was immensely controversial at the time.
, the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) through MILNET
, the National Science Foundation
(NSF) through CSNET
and NSFNET
, the NSF sponsored regional research and education networks, and a handful of national networks sponsored by various federal government agencies. The focus of this group was either military/government or research and education communications, especially support for the separately funded NSF supercomputing
initiatives that started after Nobel laureate
Ken Wilson's
testimony to Congress
in the 1980s.
In general these federally supported networks did not allow commercial traffic that was not in direct support of a federal agency's mission or in support of research and education. There were of course many organizations that wanted access to the Internet, but did not do work directly for or with federal agency or in support of research and education.
In 1991 the NSF allowed Advanced Network and Services
(ANS), a non-profit company established by the Merit Network
, IBM
, and MCI
to carry commercial traffic over the ANSNet backbone, the same infrastructure that carried traffic for the NSFNET Backbone Service. NSF required ANS to (i) charge at least the average cost of carrying the commercial traffic, (ii) to set aside any revenue in excess of the cost of carrying the commercial traffic in an infrastructure pool that would be allocated to enhance and extend national and regional networking infrastructure and support, and (iii) to ensure that carrying commercial traffic did not diminish the NSFNET service.
Some saw allowing ANS CO+RE to carry commercial traffic as a good next step in the evolution of the Internet and as a way to bring about economies of scale that would reduce the cost of the Internet for everyone. Others were concerned by this approach to commercialization/privatization of the Internet and the manner in which ANS, IBM, and MCI received a perceived competitive advantage in leveraging federal research money to gain ground in fields in which other companies allegedly were more competitive. There was also disagreement about a settlement policy that seemed to require payments based on the amount of traffic exchanged.
The "com-priv" public mailing list at PSInet (com-priv@psi.com) was created to provide an open forum where the pros and cons of the ANS/NSF agreement and approaches toward the commercialization of the Internet could be debated. The concept for the CIX was disclosed and debated on the com-priv list.
. The original signatories to the CIX agreement were PSINet
, UUNET
and CERFnet.
A "compromise" was needed in order to maintain a fully interconnected Internet. Mitch Kapor
took over the CIX chairmanship from Marty Schoffstall and in June 1992 forged an agreement with ANS allowing ANS to connect to the CIX as a "trial" that they could leave with a moment's notice and without having to become a CIX member. This compromise resolved things for a time, but later the CIX started to block access from regional networks that had not paid the $10,000 fee to become members of the CIX.
This unfortunate state of affairs kept the networking community as a whole from fully implementing the true vision for the Internet--a world-wide network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks allowing any connected site to communicate with any other connected site. These problems would not be fully resolved until a new network architecture was developed and the NSFNET Backbone Service was turned off in 1995.
(NAPs) that were established for the transition of NSFNET traffic to competing service providers that included Sprint
, ANS, internetMCI
, and others.
By 1995 the CIX was essentially superseded by events both commercial and technical, though the CIX router continued to operate until 2001 when the UUNET peering session was turned down.
The hardware
, a Cisco
7500 router, that had been the workhorse for most of the CIX's operational life (though not at its inception), together with papers and notes from the founding meetings (donated by Bill Schrader of PSINET) were acquired by the National Museum of American History
in November 2005.
(FCC). CIX's executive director was Barbara Dooley. CIX's lobbying efforts reflected the positions of its largest financial supporter, AT&T
, regularly opposing the positions of the incumbent local bell operating companies. CIX also appeared in other forums such as before the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC) and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
(ICANN). AT&T also supported a CIX spin off effort, the US ISP Association
(USISPA) which was led by Sue Ashdown. Unlike other trade associations, CIX did not host a trade show, but instead appeared and solicited support at conferences like ISPCON.
AT&T, the long distance company
, came under financial strain during the dot-com bust prior to being acquired by SBC, and its support for CIX diminished. In 2002, CIX was reorganized and took on the name of its spin off organization, the USISPA
. AT&T is now owned by SBC. While AT&T continues to support USIPSA, USISPA no longer takes policy stances at the FCC in opposition to SBC or other bell operating companies.
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
that we know today.
Goal
The goal of the CIX was to be an independent interconnection point with no U.S. governmentFederal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
-defined "acceptable use policy
Acceptable use policy
An acceptable use policy is a set of rules applied by the owner/manager of a network, website or large computer system that restrict the ways in which the network site or system may be used...
" on the traffic that could be exchanged; and just as critical, a "no-settlement" policy between the parties exchanging traffic. The no-settlement policy became a "given" during the modern era of the Internet, but was immensely controversial at the time.
The great debate
The early history of the Internet was dominated by U.S. government agencies such as ARPA/DARPA through ARPANETARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) through MILNET
MILNET
In computer networking, MILNET was the name given to the part of the ARPANET internetwork designated for unclassified United States Department of Defense traffic....
, the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
(NSF) through CSNET
CSNET
The Computer Science Network was a computer network that began operation in 1981 in the United States. Its purpose was to extend networking benefits, for computer science departments at academic and research institutions that could not be directly connected to ARPANET, due to funding or...
and NSFNET
NSFNet
The National Science Foundation Network was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation beginning in 1985 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States...
, the NSF sponsored regional research and education networks, and a handful of national networks sponsored by various federal government agencies. The focus of this group was either military/government or research and education communications, especially support for the separately funded NSF supercomputing
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
initiatives that started after Nobel laureate
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
Ken Wilson's
Kenneth G. Wilson
Kenneth Geddes Wilson is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner.As an undergraduate at Harvard, he was a Putnam Fellow. He earned his PhD from Caltech in 1961, studying under Murray Gell-Mann....
testimony to Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
in the 1980s.
In general these federally supported networks did not allow commercial traffic that was not in direct support of a federal agency's mission or in support of research and education. There were of course many organizations that wanted access to the Internet, but did not do work directly for or with federal agency or in support of research and education.
In 1991 the NSF allowed Advanced Network and Services
Advanced Network and Services
Advanced Network and Services was a United States non-profit organization formed in September 1990 by the NSFNET partners to run the network infrastructure for the soon to be upgraded NSFNET Backbone Service.-ANSNet:...
(ANS), a non-profit company established by the Merit Network
Merit Network
Merit Network, Inc., is a nonprofit member-governed organization providing high-performance computer networking and related services to educational, government, health care, and nonprofit organizations, primarily in Michigan...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, and MCI
MCI Communications
MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...
to carry commercial traffic over the ANSNet backbone, the same infrastructure that carried traffic for the NSFNET Backbone Service. NSF required ANS to (i) charge at least the average cost of carrying the commercial traffic, (ii) to set aside any revenue in excess of the cost of carrying the commercial traffic in an infrastructure pool that would be allocated to enhance and extend national and regional networking infrastructure and support, and (iii) to ensure that carrying commercial traffic did not diminish the NSFNET service.
Some saw allowing ANS CO+RE to carry commercial traffic as a good next step in the evolution of the Internet and as a way to bring about economies of scale that would reduce the cost of the Internet for everyone. Others were concerned by this approach to commercialization/privatization of the Internet and the manner in which ANS, IBM, and MCI received a perceived competitive advantage in leveraging federal research money to gain ground in fields in which other companies allegedly were more competitive. There was also disagreement about a settlement policy that seemed to require payments based on the amount of traffic exchanged.
The "com-priv" public mailing list at PSInet (com-priv@psi.com) was created to provide an open forum where the pros and cons of the ANS/NSF agreement and approaches toward the commercialization of the Internet could be debated. The concept for the CIX was disclosed and debated on the com-priv list.
The CIX is born
In mid-1991 meetings that lead to the formation of the CIX were held in Reston, VirginiaReston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...
. The original signatories to the CIX agreement were PSINet
PSINet
PSINet was one of the first internet service providers , based in Northern Virginia, and a major player in the commercialization of the Internet until the company's bankruptcy in 2001 during the dot-com bubble and acquisition by Cogent Communications in 2002.-Growth:PSINet was founded in 1989 by...
, UUNET
UUNET
UUNET founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the nine Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was the first commercial Internet service provider...
and CERFnet.
The great compromise
The CIX was growing as more and more commercial ISPs connected. NSFNET traffic continued growing based on research and education usage. ANS CO+RE was carrying commercial traffic. But ANS refused to connect to the CIX and the CIX refused to purchase a connection to ANS. Thus it was not always possible for organizations connected to one provider to exchange traffic with other organizations connected via a different provider.A "compromise" was needed in order to maintain a fully interconnected Internet. Mitch Kapor
Mitch Kapor
Mitchell David Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3. He is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation...
took over the CIX chairmanship from Marty Schoffstall and in June 1992 forged an agreement with ANS allowing ANS to connect to the CIX as a "trial" that they could leave with a moment's notice and without having to become a CIX member. This compromise resolved things for a time, but later the CIX started to block access from regional networks that had not paid the $10,000 fee to become members of the CIX.
This unfortunate state of affairs kept the networking community as a whole from fully implementing the true vision for the Internet--a world-wide network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks allowing any connected site to communicate with any other connected site. These problems would not be fully resolved until a new network architecture was developed and the NSFNET Backbone Service was turned off in 1995.
Legacy of the CIX as an exchange point
The CIX established the business model for the settlement-free exchange of Internet traffic between Network Service Providers. From an engineering perspective this was an important precursor to the Internet interconnection architecture that followed such as the Metropolitan Area Ethernet (MAE) and the NSF sponsored Network Access PointsNetwork access point
A Network Access Point was a public network exchange facility where Internet Service Providers connected with one another in peering arrangements. The NAPs were a key component in the transition from the NSFNET era when many networks were government sponsored and commercial traffic was prohibited...
(NAPs) that were established for the transition of NSFNET traffic to competing service providers that included Sprint
Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
, ANS, internetMCI
MCI Communications
MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...
, and others.
By 1995 the CIX was essentially superseded by events both commercial and technical, though the CIX router continued to operate until 2001 when the UUNET peering session was turned down.
The hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
, a Cisco
Cisco
Cisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore...
7500 router, that had been the workhorse for most of the CIX's operational life (though not at its inception), together with papers and notes from the founding meetings (donated by Bill Schrader of PSINET) were acquired by the National Museum of American History
National Museum of American History
The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center collects, preserves and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific and military history. Among the items on display are the original Star-Spangled Banner and Archie Bunker's...
in November 2005.
The CIX as a trade association
As the role of CIX as an interexchange point diminished, it took on the role of an ISP trade association. CIX frequently lobbied the U.S. government and the Federal Communications CommissionFederal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC). CIX's executive director was Barbara Dooley. CIX's lobbying efforts reflected the positions of its largest financial supporter, AT&T
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
, regularly opposing the positions of the incumbent local bell operating companies. CIX also appeared in other forums such as before the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
(FTC) and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
ICANN
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...
(ICANN). AT&T also supported a CIX spin off effort, the US ISP Association
US ISPA
The United States Internet Service Provider Association is an organization founded in 2002 by such companies as America Online, Earthlink, Verizon, and MCI to represent "the common policy and legal interests of Internet Service Providers" ....
(USISPA) which was led by Sue Ashdown. Unlike other trade associations, CIX did not host a trade show, but instead appeared and solicited support at conferences like ISPCON.
AT&T, the long distance company
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
, came under financial strain during the dot-com bust prior to being acquired by SBC, and its support for CIX diminished. In 2002, CIX was reorganized and took on the name of its spin off organization, the USISPA
US ISPA
The United States Internet Service Provider Association is an organization founded in 2002 by such companies as America Online, Earthlink, Verizon, and MCI to represent "the common policy and legal interests of Internet Service Providers" ....
. AT&T is now owned by SBC. While AT&T continues to support USIPSA, USISPA no longer takes policy stances at the FCC in opposition to SBC or other bell operating companies.
See also
- Commercial traffic section of the NSFNET articleNSFNetThe National Science Foundation Network was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation beginning in 1985 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States...
- Controversy section of the NSFNET articleNSFNetThe National Science Foundation Network was a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation beginning in 1985 to promote advanced research and education networking in the United States...
- Network Access PointNetwork access pointA Network Access Point was a public network exchange facility where Internet Service Providers connected with one another in peering arrangements. The NAPs were a key component in the transition from the NSFNET era when many networks were government sponsored and commercial traffic was prohibited...
(NAP) - Federal Internet ExchangeFederal Internet ExchangeFederal Internet Exchange points were policy based network peering points where U.S. federal agency networks, such as the National Science Foundation Network , NASA Science Network , Energy Sciences Network , and MILNET were interconnected.Two FIXes were established in June 1989 under the auspices...
(FIX) - Internet Exchange PointInternet Exchange PointAn Internet exchange point is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers exchange Internet traffic between their networks . IXPs reduce the portion of an ISP's traffic which must be delivered via their upstream transit providers, thereby reducing the average per-bit...
(IXP) - History of the InternetHistory of the InternetThe history of the Internet starts in the 1950s and 1960s with the development of computers. This began with point-to-point communication between mainframe computers and terminals, expanded to point-to-point connections between computers and then early research into packet switching...