Date: 2 Jul 90 From: Bill Bostwick FRICC POLICY ON INTERCONNECTIVITY AND RESOURCE SHARING Within the participating government agencies of the Federal Research Internet Coordinating Committee (FRICC), there exist today varying policies on the acceptable use of each agency's networking resources. This policy statement set forth by the FRICC will establish both a short-term and longer-term policy agreed to by the FRICC participating members. Mid-level networks that use FRICC shared resources must conform to this policy. For the short term, the FRICC policy is relatively simple and is primarily motivated by the cost savings to the Federal government. This policy will be in effect from mid fiscal year 1989 through fiscal year 1991. 1. The member agencies of the FRICC agree to share the use of network data links, both domestic and foreign, whenever possible. This will include the gatewaying of major backbone resources of the participating agencies within the continental United States. 2. The member agencies of the FRICC agree to carry all traffic that meets the acceptable use policy of the originating member agency. In the least restrictive case, this includes all bona fide researchers and scholars, public and private, from the United States and foreign countries unless denied access by national policy. 3. The member agencies of the FRICC will maintain the prerogative to limit or shut off the shared use of interconnected resources during periods when guaranteed bandwidth might be required by the proprietary agency. 4. The FRICC will comply with OMB Circular A-130 through estimates of shared traffic and ongoing research and development enabling the identification and metering of traffic through gateways or other means. For the long term, the FRICC policy is a transition to a National Research Network to be operated commercially. The FRICC will support the research and development required for the administrative policy controls and counting mechanisms that will make this transition possible.