CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_

Reported by Mark Alexander Davis-Craig/Merit

Minutes of the Low-Cost IP Hardware Wish List BOF (LOIP)

Mark Davis-Craig chaired the BOF in place of Laura Breeden.  The charge
of the Group was to come up with a wish list of what we'd like to see in
a low-cost piece of IP hardware, and to give that list to FARNET.

We had the critical mass necessary for a good 2.5 hour discussion with
adequate representation from network providers, vendors, and people
trying to connect K-12.

We made the following recommendations:


   o FARNET should submit an RFI to vendors with requirements stipulated
     by FARNET members (network providers) and not with requirements of
     those who may ultimately use said box for their Internet
     connectivity.

   o An inventory of today's existing solutions should be taken.

   o A matrix of costs and responsibilities should be created to help
     buyers of network access make good choices with respect to the
     balance between low-cost and low-maintenance.


With that data, FARNET should be able to bundle some ``startup kits'' of
software and hardware for various environments to make it easier for
small institutions to get connected.

The unedited comments, which were written on transparencies at the
meeting, follow.  I intend to rewrite them later in a more coherent
fashion.  Editor's Note (md):  A complete listing of the ``unedited''
comments is available via ftp under loip-minutes-93mar.txt.  Refer to
Section 1.2 of the Proceedings for retrieval instructions.

Attendees

Mark Davis-Craig         mad@merit.edu
Sallie Fellows           sallie@ed.unh.edu
Terry Gray               gray@cac.washington.edu
John Hascall             john@iastate.edu
John Klensin             klensin@infoods.unu.edu
Daniel Long              long@nic.near.net
Paul Lustgraaf           grpjl@iastate.edu
Bruce Nelson             bnelson@novell.com
David O'Leary            doleary@cisco.com
Roy Perry                rperry@advtech.uswest.com


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