Latest Round of Hacker Attacks Illustrate the Problem With Flat-Rate Internet Business Models - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, March 6, 2000

Apogee Networks' Founder and CEO, Pablo Tapia Monday declared that the recent wave of high-profile denial-of-service attacks is a direct end result of the flat-rate business models that currently dominate the Internet service provider industry, and that the best defense against such attacks in the future is more rigorous accounting and billing of 'Net utilization.

"Malicious `Net users can unleash this IP traffic because it doesn't cost a dime to transmit packets over the `Net," Tapia stated. "If service providers had billing systems in place that accounted for customer resource consumption, it would be a lot harder for people to play the kind of games they're playing today."

Tapia noted that service providers have all the monitoring tools necessary to track traffic across their networks, but that the data generated by those tools - including RMON2 probes, RADIUS servers and vendor-specific facilities such as the NetFlow instrumentation on Cisco routers - isn't effectively or regularly correlated into user- and/or application-specific reports. "Flat-fee business models essentially make service providers indifferent to how their customers are using the `Net," he observed. "That kind of business environment makes everyone vulnerable to the irresponsible behavior of any individual user or group of users."

The alternative, according to Tapia, is for service providers to move to usage-based business models for access to `Net services. The impact of such models would far transcend improved security. "By charging for the actual services they provide, service providers will be able to structure their network investments in a more rational manner," Tapia said. "They will also be able to market services and content in a more coherent, value-driven way to their business and consumer customer bases."

"Service providers today don't know much about their customers or their behavior," Tapia noted, "if they knew what was going on across their networks, they'd be in a better position to brand their services and achieve profitability. The resulting increase in security would simply be a very fortunate side benefit."

Apogee Networks' NetCountant/SP is a powerful, scalable platform that enables service providers to move away from undifferentiated flat-rate business models and implement a virtually unlimited range of pricing and marketing programs based on customers' actual network utilization. NetCountant allows customer usage to be tracked and billed based on volume, content, applications, service classes, times-of-day, and other parameters. It also enables service providers to control user access to services based on these same parameters.

Headquartered in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, Apogee Networks, Inc. develops and markets a new class of "Business Aware Solutions." These solutions enable Service Providers to differentiate their services by moving away from profitable flat rate billing models. Enterprise customers gain new visibility into the usage patterns and consumption of network resources, allowing them to better leverage network investments, and control growth patterns and escalating costs. NetCountant received "Best of Show" award at Networld Interop. FMI: www.apogeenetworks.com.