Of course, Verio, counted by many as the largest hosting provider in the world, also sells circuit-based services. I presume you are refering to cmpanies like Exodus and Interland? (of course largest in terms of sites hosted does not equal largest in terms of outbound bandwidth, which is what we were refering to with peering) Daniel Golding Director, Network Evaluation and Design NetRail, Inc. 1-888-NetRail On 17 Jun 2000, Paul Vixie wrote:

sean@donelan.com (Sean Donelan) writes:

...

I don't understand your distinction. Several companies sell both hosting services and network services. GlobalCenter/Crossing, Genuity/BBN and Worldcom/UUNET have large "global" optical networks and hosting divisions.

Those companies also sell circuit-based services, i.e., services that do not require hosting in order to accept delivery of them. Genuity's home page mentions DSL, for example. These are fine companies, with fine networks, but they are not "hosting" companies any more than making tanks in WW2 made Chrysler into a weapons company or making keyboards and mice makes Microsoft a hardware company. If it's just one thing they do, then it doesn't make sense to label the company by it. -- Paul Vixie <vixie@mibh.net> SVP for Internet Services, MFNX

M.I.B.H. Inc. is a subsidiary of Metromedia Fiber Network, Inc.