Subject: IP Insurgency: Internet Infrastructure & the Transformation of Telecom -- State of the internet 1998

From: Gordon Cook <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 19:20:32 -0500

This posting contains the Preface to the fourth volume in an annual series
of infrastructure handbooks from the COOK Report. The preface summarizes
our understanding of the current state of the Internet.  The complete
handbook, including this preface and the table of contents is described in
detail at our website.  (http://cookreport.com/insurgency.html  )

IP Insurgency:  Internet Infrastructure and the Transformation of Telecomm

State of the
Internet in 1998

Rapid Technology
Development Pushes IP Everywhere

While in the popular imagination the Internet is the World Wide Web, email,
mail lists, and e-commerce, for a much smaller group of experts, the
Internet took on new dimensions in 1998. First during 1998 it became
evident to everybody that one could not be considered a player in the
telecommunications arena without providing access to the Internet. Less
widely recognized, but in the end far more significant, was a second
development.  In the eyes of a small number of cognoscenti, the Internet,
considered in the broader sense of the technologies that support TCP/IP,
began to play the central role in developments that are now transforming
telecommunications on a global level.

In 1998, currents set in motion by the growth of the commercial Internet
began to impact all of telecommunications. Many of these currents were
identified by the analysis in David Isenberg's Rise of the Stupid Network.
At the most basic level, the Internet's on-going expansion helped to fuel a
very rapid growth in the overall amount of network data traffic.  It
created a momentum that helped to ensure the deployment of optical network
technologies previously not expected to be commercially viable before the
end of 2000.

In this context, some of the people who were watching the build-out of the
fiber networks of the next generation telcos were gripped by some gnawing
doubts.   Might a world-wide, build-out of TCP/IP connectionless networks
become an extremely cost effective undertaking? Might it turn into a
tsunami that could endanger the economic viability of the multi-trillion
dollar PSTN worldwide?  This may seem like a bold claim.  However, its
substance is brought starkly home by the reality of the laying of more than
50,000 miles of new fiber by companies like Qwest, Level 3, IXC, Williams
and Enron -- companies whose names are generally unknown to most of the
American public.

Advances in Optics
Enable Building of New Nets for a Penny or Two on the Dollar

From the end of1996 through the end of 1998 was a period of time when ATT's
spin-off of Western Electric, renamed Lucent, came to have a market value
exceeding that of its parent company. During this same two years, the
maturation of wave division (WDM) multiplexing and then dense wave division
multiplexing (DWDM) increased the carrying capacity of fiber from 20 to 400
gigabits per second.  The speed of this growth far out stripped the pace of
change dictated by Moore's law which, by making mainframe processing power
affordable for desktop computers, was turning the legacy telco view of the
world on its head.  Cheap intelligence sent potential control of the public
switched telephone network into the hands of every user at its periphery.
The speed of these changes sent tremors through telco business models by
rendering obsolete the 20 to 30 year depreciation cycle for the telco's
central office switching and network equipment.

The next-gen upstarts would use the commonality of IP packets as envelopes
into which the entire range of communications protocols - voice and video,
as well as data - could be stuffed.  TCP/IP made it possible for these new
companies, each of which possessed in its new dark fiber capacity in excess
of that of ATT or MCI, to implement networks in which the cost of
delivering services would be a small fraction of those incurred by their
legacy predecessors.

But while the legacy networks were saddled by the burdens of regulation,
they also had the customers.  Their existence rested on the installed base
of more than 600 million telephones world wide known as the public switched
telephone network (PSTN).  While next-gen telcos would gain some businesses
and early adapter individuals as customers, they knew that their ultimate
test would be to take on the huge PSTN with streamlined systems that cost a
fraction as much to operate.  To do this they would need the development of
protocols to enable new services at a fraction of the cost of the old.
They would also need protocols to cheaply and transparently merge critical
portions of the PSTN to their new IP services.  One force impelling the
triumph of the TCP/IP insurgency which, seen another way, is merely the
ubiquitous application of the protocol, is that legacy companies are
generally finding it necessary to offer their own versions of IP telephony.
The next-gen telcos are surrounding and enveloping the PSTN like amoebas.
They are doing this as the stronger and more forward looking legacy telcos
are rolling out system upgrades that, in high user density areas, are
essentially copies of the DWDM fiber nets of Qwest and Level 3.

NSP Movers, Shakers and Dinosaurs--
Assessing the Ranks

While the next-gen build-out was underway, consolidation became the battle
cry among ISPs. Verio continued its buyout binge spurred along by a $100
million investment from NTT.  But Verio loomed not much larger in the
scheme of things at the end of the year than at the beginning.  Except for
the changes in the prices of their common stock, (some prices much more
absurdly inflated than others) business continued as usual for DIGEX, PSI,
GTEI (BBN), ATT Worldnet, Sprint, AOL, and MSN.  Among year's the smartest
moves was the Sprint Earth Link alliance which made Earth Link into an
excellent national service.

IBM Global Net was purchased for more than $4 billion by ATT.  Known in
some circles as the "American PTT," ATT thereby gained the biggest legacy
TCP/IP network in the world.  ATT continued to show its lack of
understanding of the new times with its purchase of TCI.  ATT's leadership,
not grasping the full potential of either satellite or wireless as a local
loop solution, seemed fixated on competing with the rapidly merging ILECs
for a second wire into American homes. ATT's combination of these two huge
legacy dinosaurs, we predict, will go nowhere fast. These behemoths are
unable to understand that, in their ability to keep up with the speed of
technology changes, their huge size is a liability.  ATT's January 99 win
of the new backbone for @Home is certainly interesting -- especially when
one considers that @home rejected bids by all the next-gen telcos.
Certainly ATT is looking to challenge the LEC strangle hold on the local
loop.

The one hopeful glimmer to come from ATT all year long was its hiring of
Sally Floyd and Vern Paxon for its Silicon Valley based Internet research
group.  (Cisco however completed the plucking of Lawrence Berkley Labs and
increased the size of its very considerable brain trust by hiring the
legendary Van Jacobson.)  Meanwhile IBM as the other major global dinosaur
of American industry, rather than compete internationally against upstart
Teleglobe and UUNET, sold Global Net and cast its lot with e-commerce by
building up its Washington lobbying organization with Mike Nelson, Roger
Cochetti, and John Patrick.  Arm in arm with Vint Cerf, these IBM folk
rather than push new technology development, got ever more firmly behind
their Global Internet Project which collected big industry money on behalf
of the newly emerged and morally bankrupt ICANN.

Bernie Ebbers' combined MCI-Worldcom made major waves as an exercise in
debt leveraging.  It took one major backbone (ANS) and turned it into a
corporate firewall security arm of UUNET.  Its move to take the largest
backbone of all (MCI) and combine that with UUNET was properly attacked as
an effort to build monopoly share.  John Curran's analysis of the
implications of this move was accurate. He offered a very powerful
explanation of why it would lead to damaging industry consolidation.  The
upshot was that MCI was forced to sell its backbone business to Cable and
Wireless, an international legacy telco still in search of its first
Internet clues.  While the successful merger gained MCI executives a pool
in excess of $150 million in golden parachutes first promised them by BT,
it is likely to spell the end for MCI's very considerable supply of
Internet technical talent which is leaving for players who appreciate it.
Doug van Howelling's Abeline alliance with Qwest while leaving a smiling
Richard Leibhaber has stripped MCI's vBNS research partnership with the NSF
of the depth of R&E support that it otherwise would have enjoyed.  MCI does
have a strong Internet telephony R&D effort, but given Ebber's efforts to
strip costs in order to pay off the money borrowed to finance his
acquisitions, we wonder whether it has any chance of surviving. Four months
after Ebber successfully swallowed MCI, the over riding priorities of the
new mega-company appear to be cost cutting not technology advancement.

Peering discussions continued apace and served as a mirror for changing
models of the network.  John Curran (GTEI CTO) showed how peering, even
among the top five or six backbones, depends on market place share. His
analysis played a significant role in forcing the divestiture of Internet
MCI. Later in the year GTEI (BBN) was in the center of a peering dispute
with Exodus.  In the resulting squabble those who thought content providers
could call the tune found out otherwise.  Finally, the model of regional
multi-homing to many backbones, pioneered by Fast Net, was used
successfully on a national level by Savvis.

The Local Loop
Challenge

@Home remains a savvy player.  We know many delighted customers.
Nevertheless implementation in some areas has been slipshod.  From what we
can tell problems almost always have been the fault of the Cable provider.
However, cable modem internet connections, now approaching a million, are
growing in a serious way.  The Canadian cable industry seems more
intelligent than its US counterpart.  Videotron's 1999 experiment with
Cisco for the delivery of telephony via cable internet connection shapes up
to be quite exciting.

The FCC is revisiting Part 15 no-license radio rules that include spread
spectrum wireless for the first time in a generation.  It's December 98
Notice of Inquiry Proceeding (98-153) has generated substantial support for
its suggested ultra wide band use of the spectrum by a range of devices
that can cut across television and other previously prohibited frequencies.
One notable comment filing is from Paul Allen's Interval Research
Corporation that recommends changes to the rules that will enable a wide
variety of devices and services hitherto restricted. IRC conducted a study
validating Tim Shepard's MIT dissertation that asserted that millions of
radios could operate without interference in a very small area, such as a
city. IRC challenged, with impressing technical calculations, fears that
such radios and devices operating at very low noise levels would interfere
with traditional services. It did a study that showed that a Pentium class
PC makes about the same noise as a proposed Part 15 device will - and
nobody is complaining that PCs interfere with television reception. The
rethinking of FCC policy in this area could help break the LEC monopoly by
permitting manufacturers to make high performance, low cost, no-license
digital radios that can bypass traditional wire based data services, and
turn this technology into a major means of local loop access.

Satellite has the potential to become an alternative to local loop
connectivity.  Unfortunately it is currently too expensive.  Sky Station
isn't off the ground yet. Nor is Teledesic.  We recently published a cover
article on Alohanet and innovative effort to increase the efficiency and
there for lower the price of satellite by use of spread spectrum.  Alohanet
is currently having difficulty at the very critical stage of putting their
prototypes into production.

Craig McCaw's NextLink Communications has done a very interesting deal with
Level 3 that could have interesting synergies for Teledesic (another McCaw
owned company) when its system goes live.  Give the amount of fiber
involved, McCaw could sell access to that at market rates and throw in
satellite local loop for free, if he ever wanted to mount a LEC killer.
Readers will find it well worth taking a look at the details of the
arrangement found in section 11 of the Level 3 10q filed on November 13,
1998 at http://www.edgar-online.com.  Basically Internext, a subsidiary of
NextLink will gain the right to use 24 of Level 3's dark fibers by paying a
total of $700 million in cost sharing as the network is built.

Technology
Development:  Fiber, DWDM, Routers, IPV6 & Telephony Protocols

The impact of Bernie Ebbers' speculative excess on MCI is a shame since it
is MCI that has developed the very clean, lean and mean, telephony model
outlined in our December issue.  This model has only five levels beginning
with WDM over fiber, framed by gigabit ethernet, on top of which ride IP
and MPLS.   Applications are handled in two layers, one for web IP
applications and one for IP servers which packetize voice video and data.
The five layers are tied together by a single hierarchy of web based
information systems and network management.  It is likely that six systems
will make up the management organizational structure of the next generation
telco's compared to the 12 systems that must be maintained and coordinated
so that the legacy telco can provide separate voice and internet services.
If MCI doesn't bring this new architecture to market, it is likely to be
realized by Qwest or Level 3 whose backbone is being built largely by
ex-MCI senior engineers.

Plans to send IP over glass became reality. CANet3 became the first
operational IP over fiber network.   By year's end it was generally
understood that many DWDM light paths (lambdas) running with gigabit
Ethernet or SONET framing over fiber and doing without ATM and without
complete SONET gear could cut the transmission cost of data by a factor of
as much as a 100.  Faster routers were also coming on-line. These included
boxes from Lucent, Nortel, and Juniper.  Implementations of IPv6 stand in
the wings. While quality of service at the IP level remained a seemingly
intractable problem, we find it intriguing to begin to hear talk from
Sycamore Networks and elsewhere that multiple lambdas at level two may be
used to provide a kind of on-demand QoS.  (Details on this may be found in
this  issue.)

Having an 18 month head start over Level 3, Qwest acquired EuNet and
Colorado Supernet and started offering IP services and various transport
services priced very aggressively in an effort to win market share from ATT
and other old line telcos.  But Level 3 made a mark for itself with efforts
to hurry into development a protocol that would allow providers of IP
telephony to seamlessly interconnect their systems with the PSTN.
Williams, meanwhile, got read to test Sycamore Networks' first optical
filters.  Mediatrix, a small French Canadian company, developed a
persuasive argument which pointed out that for Internet telephony to take
off most quickly, the tools for its implementation should be located at the
user's intelligent desktop on the periphery of the network. As far as
telephony protocols themselves go, we learned why H.323 is generally to be
avoided and why SIP is both elegant and simple and therefore good.  In a
December 1998 follow-up conversation with Mediatrix we also learned that
the industry, instead of giving birth to a dominant IP telephony protocol,
is nurturing whole families of protocols. Such families will cover a wide
range of Internet telephony applications.  Thanks to this widespread
protocol development we see few, if any, roadblocks to the development of a
considerable variety of IP telephony applications created by a variety of
vendors ranging from ILECS to next generation telcos.

No Real Boundaries Separate Commercial
Internet from Rest of
Telecommunications

In general, two 'rivers' are moving forward.  On the one hand, the
commercial Internet is growing rapidly.  On the other hand it becomes very
evident that the innovations designed to propel the commercial Internet
need not stop there.  If IP Sec is useful in the commercial Internet, it is
equally useful in private internets.  If IP telephony is useful in the
commercial Internet, it is probably even more useful in using corporate
Virtual Private internets to take telephone traffic off the PSTN.

In short, by the end of 1998 the technology supporting packet data networks
had become so productive that entrepreneurs began to find compelling
economic arguments to begin to use it to carry the payloads of older,
legacy, connection-oriented voice and video networks.  Fueled by the
opportunity to entirely eliminate the expensive SONET and ATM
infrastructures of the PSTN, companies have been formed to take advantage
of these technology blank slates and are beginning to force the older
networks to think about emulating them or die.  The commercial Internet has
unleashed currents that for the first time are really pushing convergence
between voice and data networks and between the commercial Internet and the
PSTN.  These currents are moving cost-effective unregulated TCP/IP nets
into direct competition with the regulated PSTN.  The grounds on which the
unregulated networks compete with the telcos could hardly be less equal.
The telecom technology development engine nurtured by the open,
non-proprietary intellectual meritocracy of the IETF has created
substantial new wealth and entire new industries.  It is beginning to dawn
on some of the legacy telcos and legacy computer companies that they cannot
compete.  They will have to cannibalize their installed technology base and
do it quickly or die.  A lot of powerful people in a lot of big companies
will soon have to face the reality that they should be very afraid of the
TCP/IP Insurgency bearing down upon them.

The Mysterious ICANN Coup

In this context the Internet now finds itself caught on the horns of a
serious dilemma. Three years of domain name wars, culminating in 1998,
finally brought home to the American government that the dynamic Internet
engine of wealth creation was politically immature.  Some of the most
critical functions of the network were done by Jon Postel on the basis of
nothing more than informally agreed upon custom.  What Postel did had no
authority in law except as function supported by a DoD contract for a small
homogeneous (and largely U.S.) research community. His Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA) functions had no institutional basis.  While the
Internet was an obscure research network, it did not seem worthwhile to
have anyone argue over who set the rules for domain names, IP numbers or
protocol port assignments.  Suddenly in 1998, with the impact of the TCP/IP
insurgency about to change the face of a multi- trillion dollar world wide
telecommunications industry, the stakes were very real.

The year 1998 marked the culmination of what some considered to be nothing
more than a process designed to provide a formalized mechanism for the
execution of the IANA functions. For others, we suggest that the creation
of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was a
much more serious matter.  These people saw ICANN not just as the means for
the administration of critical technical functions but as a vantage point
from which they could determine how the Internet should be governed by
using it to make the rules under which the Internet would operate.

We have documented extensively our complaints about ICANN in previous
issues of the COOK Report and will not repeat the details of our indictment
here.  Instead, what we wish to call attention to is the question of the
limits of ICANN's power.  Defined narrowly, ICANN should be nothing more
than a body that sets policy for the development and use of domain name
space, the assignment of IP numbers, and the assignment of port numbers to
new protocols.  These are considerable powers, especially when we recall
that the first allocations of IPv6 numbers are expected this year.

In reality, the importance of ICANN's role is increased well beyond these
functions by the fact that virtually all players see it as the first
legally-constituted, international governing body for the Internet.  While
acknowledging that ICANN's initial role is limited, Esther Dyson has
indicated that there many other issues, including e-commerce and privacy,
with which she would find it attractive to become involved.  She has also
left open the door to ICANN's adding a new 'supporting organization' at
some as-yet-to-be-determined point in the future.  By definition, if ICANN
added a new supporting organization, it would be extending its authority.

Indeed, the dilemma created for the IETF by ICANN's tendency to increase
the bounds of its authority became starkly apparent as the fall out from
the ICANN BOF at the Orlando IETF was debated on the POISED list in late
December.  The one IANA function that was free of controversy was the
assignment of port numbers for new IETF protocols.  Nevertheless, the ICANN
bylaws elevated what some claimed was largely a clerical function into a
Protocols Supporting Organization (PSO) that would give the Internet
Architecture Board the right to name three members to the 19 member ICANN
Board of Directors.

At the ICANN BOF at the Orlando IETF, Mike Roberts and Esther Dyson
explained the ICANN position to a thoughtful audience which has become
aware that ICANN is no longer a continuation of the old IANA functions.
The wait-and-see attitude of the audience was a marked difference on the
part of the unthinking endorsement of ICANN demonstrated at the IETF
plenary in Chicago in August. It was pointed out that ICANN would require
the IAB to sign a contract for IANA services with it (ICANN) if it wanted
ICANN to recognize the IETF as the Protocols Supporting Organization and to
permit the IAB to fill three ICANN Board seats. ICANN was told that ISOC
was the organization that would have to sign any contracts on behalf of the
IETF and the IAB.  The leaders of the IETF have always resisted
incorporation, fearing quite correctly, that letting the lawyers in the
door would be giving them carte blanche to destroy IETF culture.

We asked Fred Baker, IETF Chair, to assess our understanding of what
happened.  Fred replied "I think you missed some points here. ICANN
requires the PSO to be a corporation, and the IETF is not and probably
never will be, for a list of good reasons. There was no argument that the
IETF should incorporate, during the plenary, the POISSON meeting, or any
other time. There was merely the observation that the IETF could not itself
be the PSO - and the observation that European Computer Manufacturers
Association (ECMA) and others want status in the PSO when it is formed
(which is also different from being the PSO themselves). This has been a
settled issue for quite a while; what was discussed in both forums what
form the PSO might take."

Fred added: "The PSO is an independent entity which the ITU, ECMA, ETSI,
and IETF might be members of - and as currently constituted, the IETF would
be the only class 1 member of.  I think there is only one proposal, and it
is to be found at
http://www.ietf.org/drafts/draft-ietf-poisson-pso-bl-01.txt. Basically, it
describes a shell corporation that has members which are themselves
organizations, and describes what their various classes of membership are.
The PSO has the right to appoint ICANN Board Members. But the IETF would
have a pretty strong voice in the PSO. The IETF cannot sign contracts, as
it is not a legal entity. ISOC signs contracts for the IETF when
appropriate. But nobody is planning on the IETF signing any contracts here."

Judging by what the lawyers who gave birth to ICANN as a corporation have
done to the IANA functions, the IETF has been very well-advised in its
refusal to incorporate.  As we pointed out in our January issue, the
establishment and early operation of ICANN has been done in a way that is
totally antithetical to the time honored open and democratic processes of
IETF working groups.  The ICAN and IETF cultures could hardly be farther
apart in their approach to problem solving.  Those who might have felt
comfortable working with an ICANN with Jon Postel at the head had to ask
themselves at the ICANN BOF if they trusted Esther Dyson and Mike Roberts
in the same way that they trusted Postel.  The answer was surely "no".

We suggest that our readers ponder these issues very carefully.  The
intellectual meritocracy of the IETF working group is the fundamental
cultural foundation from which springs the TCP/IP insurgency that is
overturning the telecommunications world.  Nothing would suit the agenda of
the huge legacy telecom empires better than a world in which their lawyers
are able to tell the engineers of the Internet what they can and cannot do.
It seems likely to be a few weeks before we will see the IETF/IAB final
response.

The Golden Egg - Will ICANN Kill the Goose or Just Steal It?

Right now we know only that ICANN was established in the most mysterious of
ways.  We know that its leaders give lip service to openness while pursuing
an unclear agenda behind the scenes, justifying their bylaws with  specious
arguments at best, and practicing a style of operation that renders them
accountable to no one but themselves.  Borrowing the epithet of "adult
supervision," we must ask: is ICANN nothing more than a benevolent
dictatorship imposed on the Internet by the mighty five for the Internet's
own good? Or, is it something else?  Time will tell.  We find it hopeful
that the NTIA's November 25, 1998 MoU with ICANN made it clear that ICANN
is not ready to provide adult supervision to anyone.  Indeed, ICANN is now
receiving parental supervision from NTIA, pending a show of its ability to
muster strong enough consensus support from the Internet Community.

Even so, knowing that the IP Insurgency is now so close to total triumph in
undermining the old telecom order, we would be naive not to consider the
possibility that more serious intentions lay behind the conservative, old
line computer companies, and ITU-oriented telco interests saw an
opportunity.   In the process of institutionalizing the IANA functions they
could try to form ICANN as an international regulatory governing body for
the Internet - one that they could indeed use to protect their own
interests.

The only problem is that they still fail to recognize that the Internet, as
the Stupid Network, where the processing intelligence is at the periphery
and not inside central office switches, has unlike the telephone system no
Central Office that can be used as a point of control. They would like to
make ICANN into a Central Office control point for the Internet.  What they
fail to realize is that, unless they can convince the government of the
United States and the governments of the all the other major internet using
nations of the world to pass laws giving ICANN legal enforcement powers
over its supporting organizations in their respective countries, they are
likely to fail. Why? Because there is no Central Office point of location
for the Internet.  To the Stupid Network, the telco Central Office model is
simple irrelevant. Attempts to create one, barring acts of unthinkable
international coordination, will fail.

Put simply they have failed to understand that they have no authority
beyond the consent of those whom they would pretend to govern.  So far
Interim president Mike Roberts,  has led the secretive and Internet
ignorant ICANN board in ways that will likely ensure that when ICANN
speaks,  no one will listen.

There can be no proof that ICANN will do evil because ICANN is not yet
fully constituted, and has not yet been given NTIAs' final blessing. But
make no mistake about the legal and operational framework that Mike
Roberts, Larry Landweber, Joe Sims and their corporate supporters have
built for ICANN. They are trying to structure it with the hope that it will
be possible for ICANN to get control of telecom rule making globally
including the Internet for whatever purposes they may have in mind.

While the world's legacy telcos and computer companies may be slow to
innovate, they are run by people intelligent enough to realize that if they
can't win on technical merit, ICANN may be the vehicle for their
self-preseveration.  In the minds of these people, ICANN looks destined to
become the first Internet international regulatory body.  Therefore, these
companies have ample reason to want to gain direct or indirect control of
ICANN.  Such control may be their only way to see that the IP insurgency
doesn't overwhelm and absorb them.

But something even more profoundly important is at stake.  The technologies
of the industrial age raised the economic barriers for anyone wanting to
start a business beyond the reach of most ordinary Americans. Because our
culture and history has long preached the virtues of self-reliance and
economic independence, this was hard for most of us to swallow.  For the
first time in a century, the small cost and enormous power of the personal
computer hooked to a modem and to the Internet re-opened the door to
individual freedom and economic self-reliance.  But this re-opened door is
a profound threat to both those business interests that seek monopoly
market power and those whose livelihood depends on social and political
control of the masses.  These people fear the Internet and are looking for
a way to control it.  ICANN, as constituted, represents the last best hope
of achieving their misguided goal.

January 27, 1999

You have just read the preface to:

IP Insurgency:  Internet Infrastructure and the Transformation of Telecomm
Can Triumph of Stupid Network Be Derailed
by ICANN Model of Central Office Control?

An Anthology of COOK Report on Internet Articles:
Volume Four of an Annual Handbook on the Commercial
Internet's Business, Technology and Management Issues
***************************************************************************
The COOK Report on Internet            New handbook just published:IP Insur-
431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 USA  gency & Transformation of Telecomm. See
(609) 882-2572 (phone & fax)
http://www.cookreport.com/insurgency.html
[email-masked]                    Index to 7 years of COOK Report, how to
subscribe, exec summaries, special reports, gloss at http://www.cookreport.com
***************************************************************************