stanonik@NPRDC.NAVY.MIL (Ron Stanonik) (06/27/89)
We've heard rumors that milnet sites might be charged for network access (something like $100k per year for a psn connection, plus packet charges). Currently end-users (ie, milnet hosts) are not being billed; apparently dca is picking up the tab, though we understand that "informational bills" are being sent to overseeing organizations. Well, this raises many questions. 1) Is any of it true? Will overseeing organizations be receiving real bills, and should end-users expect to pay those bills; ie, need to budget for them? 2) What charging rates should be expected? In particular, how will packet charges be figured (ip packets or psn packets)? 3) If ip packets are the measure, will a gateway be billed for packets routed through it, or will the orginating network be billed? The information all seems available for the latter; ie, the address is in the packet, and the network is presumably registered with NIC. 4) Is there a better forum for these questions? Thanks, Ron Stanonik stanonik@nprdc.navy.mil
barns@GATEWAY.MITRE.ORG (Bill Barns) (06/28/89)
[I've had to post this separately to the list because this mail handler I use has some warped ideas about header processing. A copy DID go to Ron Stanonik, notwithstanding the header above. I thought others might care to see it also.] Hello Ron, I'll bite, since you may not find other takers. In fact, I'll even break my usually unbreakable rule about NEVER reciting the questions before responding. > We've heard rumors that milnet sites might be charged for network > access (something like $100k per year for a psn connection, plus > packet charges). Currently end-users (ie, milnet hosts) are not > being billed; apparently dca is picking up the tab, though we understand > that "informational bills" are being sent to overseeing organizations. It's disappointing that the word doesn't get out better than it does. Personally, I'm not surprised; in theory, this has all been a matter of general knowledge throughout DoD for quite a while. In case there are others in the same boat, I'll try to cover a lot of territory with this answer. Of course, this message is unofficial. It was made a matter of policy in 1986 by JCS memo MJCS-137-86 that there would be "usage sensitive billing" on the DDN. This is somewhat a consequence of OMB Circular A-130 (December 1985), which generally requires policies of this sort for most big information technology facilities in the Government. A-130 has extensive fine print defining its scope, too much to include here. JCS MOP 195, the main policy directive governing DDN, has been adjusted to include billing-related responsibilities. DCA is not picking up the tab for MILNET hosts in general at present, and never entirely did in the past either. There is currently an administratively determined cost split among DoD organizations. For FY 1989, the Army, Navy, and Air Force are each paying $2,320,000 per month. Smaller agencies are also paying negotiated fees of various amounts, loosely based on how many hosts they have on the network. A few users pay $6,300 per month per port. DCA gets budget money for certain costs of managing DDN, and they get budget money for their own use of DDN. The usage part goes into the CSIF (Communications Service Industrial Fund) where it is commingled with the contributions from the rest of DoD, not only for DDN but for DSN, ARPANET, and whatever the other 15 or so common user systems are. There is only one CSIF and its revenues balance its expenditures every year. The individual systems don't have to balance. The operational costs of DDN (and DSN, etc.) are all paid out of the CSIF. Certain management and "other" costs come out of the DCA budget. Certain overhead costs such as the Monitoring Centers are paid out of the CSIF and thus are distributed over the users. The CSIF chunk of overall DDN cost is large compared to the other part. So, basically, the users are paying, but at a high organizational level. The "informational bills" are being sent to give managers a handle on their usage levels. I believe that those sent so far are all from a sort of pre-prototype billing system. The gears of the real phase-1 ("Interim") billing system are just starting to grind now. The ultimate billing is embedded in an existing DECCO billing vehicle called the Carrier Cost & Obligation (CC&O) report, which is where your billing would normally show up if (for example) you leased a telco line. Since there is not much room in the CC&O for useful detail, there will be a new report called the DDN Supplemental Billing Report. The "bills" sent thus far contained information that will be used in the supplemental report, but the format and some other details differ. > 1) Is any of it true? Will overseeing organizations be receiving > real bills, and should end-users expect to pay those bills; ie, > need to budget for them? The generic answer is "yes" but the details will depend on management decisions in your chain of command. The intent of the system is to create an effective feedback loop which makes the consequences of user behavior fall upon the users. Just how far down the org chart the budgeting will descend, and how soon, is somewhat at the organization's option, but the JCS directives refer to the "lowest practical level." > 2) What charging rates should be expected? In particular, how will > packet charges be figured (ip packets or psn packets)? The charging is per 128 octet (or less) subnet packet sent. If an AHIP (1822) host sends a 512-octet (excluding leader) regular message to the PSN, or if an X.25 (Basic or Standard) host sends an X.25 packet with 512 octets of data, it counts for 4 packets because it generates 4 subnet packets. If the host sends 513 data octets, it counts for 5 packets. Yes, this means that IP and TCP headers are billable data. In the earlier planning stages we seemed to have a "tariff du jour" but this seems to be settling down. DCA issues a formal rate letter every few months with projected forward pricing for all the common user services, including DDN. For hosts, cost components include access line charge(s) if circuits must be leased between your host/gateway and the PSN, monthly access charges which depend on access line speed and single/dual homing, and kilopacket charges. All CSIF charges have an overhead factor of about 1% applied to cover some of the CSIF cost of doing business. There is a complication here in that all of the Services are not cutting over to packet charge allocation simultaneously. Therefore, there are two rate schedules for MILNET, one with packet charges separate, and one with no packet charges but a considerably higher monthly charge. The classified networks have their own price schedule, with no packet charges at this time. There's another complication, too: to try to ensure some stability of real expenditure vs. projections as this scheme begins, a number of special temporary rules have been worked out in various organizations to confine the budgetary hits between various ceilings and floors. Here is a sampling of the planning rates for FY 1990. The table of access rates represents dollars per month per host. Note that special rates exist for dual homed hosts. Below that are the kilopacket rates, which are added onto the "MILNET (Plus Pkt Chg)" column for those to whom it applies. Terminal rates exist, too, but I don't feel like typing in the entire chart. I believe that the Navy will be on packet charging during FY 1990 and the Army and Air Force will be using the composite rate with no packet charges. Access Single/ MILNET CLASSIFIED MILNET COMPOSITE Rate Dual (Plus Pkt Chg) (No Pkt Chg) ------ ------ -------------- ---------- ---------------- 50/56K Single 2,100 5,600 4,150 50/56K Dual 2,700 7,300 5,650 19.2K Single 1,600 4,800 2,250 19.2K Dual 2,000 6,250 3,050 9.6K Single 1,000 4,000 1,350 9.6K Dual 1,300 5,200 1,800 Traffic Precedence Kilopacket Charge ------------------ ----------------- Level 1 (Routine): - Peak $1.30 - Off-Peak $1.00 Level 2 $3.00 Level 3 $4.00 Level 4 (Flash) $5.00 > 3) If ip packets are the measure, will a gateway be billed for packets > routed through it, or will the orginating network be billed? The > information all seems available for the latter; ie, the address is > in the packet, and the network is presumably registered with NIC. Loosely speaking, bills go to PSN ports. If you have a gateway connected to a PSN, the TSR that got you the port (or a subsequent change) specifies the Program Descriptor Code (PDC) to be charged for the packets that port sends, as well as for its monthly charge, and generally for its access line costs if any. There are also billing mechanisms for TAC usage; details are a touch byzantine, but the philosophy is analogous. My report (referred to below) tells about this. The PSN doesn't look at IP headers. Also, there is quite a bit of non-IP traffic in DDN - somewhere between 5% and 25%, probably toward the middle of that range, but since nothing looks, deriving these numbers is a difficult proposition. Then there is GOSIP... There has been a serious discussion going on for almost a year about upgrades for the second phase of the DDN billing capability. MITRE (in the person of me) did a study of technical issues and alternatives. Peeking at IP headers was among the possibilities considered. The study report was published a couple of months ago for authorized distribution. It is pending public release authorization - "due" in a couple of weeks, but it will get here when it gets here. DoD people can probably get copies now; quite a few were apparently distributed to various "key players" in the services. There is also a somewhat shorter DCA document ("Analysis of Potential Future DDN Billing System Features") covering some of the same territory; for maximum coverage, you probably need both. If you think it's appropriate for you to receive these documents and you have difficulty obtaining them, drop me a note and I'll try (as my time and patience permit) to get it taken care of through an appropriate channel. The sticking point with all enhancements is that the services (users) will have to pay for developing and fielding enhancements, and I gather that they are not sure that an elaborate centralized system is worth the cost. Military organizations with views on this should be working with their service or agency's TCO or other appropriate focal point to get their positions considered. > 4) Is there a better forum for these questions? Among net mailing lists, probably not (sigh). Most of the key players in this drama don't inhabit mailing lists. You can talk to me informally about technical issues, for what that's worth. DoD Services/Agencies all have TCO's and/or other kinds of focal points for DDN, and that is the channel to input any official opinions. There have been a number of miscellaneous documents, briefing slides, etc., distributed to those people at various meetings on the subject, and some of that information might be useful to you. Bill Barns / MITRE-Washington / barns@gateway.mitre.org / (703) 883-6832