to get connectivity to all govt-$ nets you must connect to all NAPs.
Peter,
This is not true.
The way the NSF awards to the RNPs is written, for PIPEX, or any other network, to get to an US R&E customer of the regional, it is sufficient for you to connect to only one NSFNET NAP.
cheers, peter
To extend on Peter's cheers, the new awards are for a transitionary phase where the Internet is becoming more and more of a commercial service offering. Reliability and integrity and scale of the Internet is so ways different from where it was at the time the NSFNET started, but there is also a significant dependence on the network by the NSFNET clientele, specifically the R&E community. As NSF is phasing out direct subsidy for a national interconnect network, and for the time being and at declining contribution over the next few years gives the next level of networks (the regional/mid-levels) the ability to acquire interconnect services on their own, NSF perceives an obligation for the network not to get compartmentalized over the forseeable future. As such, as Peter said, the way the NSF awards to the RNPs are written, their interconnect service providers have to all connect to multiple specific neutral interconnect points, to ensure the weave is being held together, until the network matures even further. The NAP service providers, as long as they conform to their agreement with the NSF, are free to expand the NAPs and attract more clients. Those clients can connect to any or all NAPs, and there is no reason some buddies and their dog cannot go off and build just another NAP, by whatever name they choose to give it. It is just a network interconnect point, after all, they had names like FEBA, FIX, CIX, GIX, MAE, and so on before, and will have new names in the future. Things are evolving, and that is just fine, as long as we can keep some measure of integrity of the network. As important as the NSFNET may have been, pioneers having shown the way that a commercial service is viable, such as PSI and Alternet, should be cheered, as I believe that it dramatically improved the long term survival chance of the network, and a path for a graceful transition away from federal subsidy, while retaining stability. Hans-Werner