Summary

  • At RIPE 3 in January 1990, participants debated how to charge for interconnection and judged a fair scheme difficult enough to require extensive route filtering.
  • The minutes record a strong preference to maximize connectivity first, with financing handled through bilateral agreements; RIPE would suggest changes, not enforce them.
  • RFC 1181 later defined RIPE as a coordination forum, leaving each participating network under its own organization’s executive authority.

The network could connect before the bill was settled

At the January meeting, charging was not a tidy accounting question. The minutes describe a fair scheme as extremely difficult to implement and likely to need extensive route filtering. Europe, they noted, had no centrally funded backbone. A European design based on a single payer could not simply be assumed.

The discussion exposed a choice about sequence. Participants expressed a strong view that maximal connectivity should come first; improvements could be made from that base. The meeting concluded that financing should proceed through bilateral agreements. That was a recorded direction for funding, not evidence that every link was built, that every operator agreed on a price, or that a final charging system existed.

One shared line raised more than one question

RIPE’s formal-coordination task force examined a draft agreement for sharing IP lines, based on an existing EUnet/NORDUnet document. Participants debated whether traffic should flow freely, whether members should charge one another for use of internal networks, and what agreements should say about backup links, full capacity and cancellation. They asked CERN’s lawyers to review the draft and invited comments. The minutes do not record a completed or adopted contract.

The technical choice also had a wider cost. The minutes note that changing a line to favor IP users could harm traffic using other protocols on the same infrastructure. “More connectivity” therefore meant deciding who bore costs and whose traffic might be affected, not just drawing another line on a map.

RIPE could coordinate, not compel

The minutes describe RIPE as a place to balance costs and recommend changes, while leaving enforcement to the participating organizations. In September, RFC 1181 stated the boundary more formally: RIPE would coordinate interconnection and common management practices, but it was not a network service provider. Each network remained under its organization’s executive authority.

Read together, the records show a deliberately limited operating role. Bilateral financing distributed decisions among the parties to a link; a common forum could help them coordinate without taking command of their networks. That arrangement left practical risks too: a forum could recommend, but could not ensure that each participant completed a connection or accepted a shared cost.

Sources: RIPE 3 Minutes (22–23 January 1990), official RIPE NCC archive; RFC 1181, RIPE Terms of Reference (September 1990), official RFC Editor text.