Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 22:02:47 -0500 (CDT) From: Tim Salo <salo@networkcs.com> To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: different thinking on exchanging traffic [...] I believe that all four of the winning NSFNET NAP submissions proposed nationwide "NAPs". I believe that the reason they didn't happen is that the NSF asked for and assumed it would get four geographically-focused solutions. I suspect that the notion of awarding four NAPs, all of which covered all of the country, provided the NSF a certain amount of heartburn. I believe that the nationwide NAP concept died, (or was killed), at the time for administrative, not technical, reasons. But, this is all speculation on my part... [...]
A presumably well informed observer sent me private e-mail that questioned my account. I read only one of the winning NAP proposals, the one I worked on. My speculation that all of the winning proposals talked about nationwide NAPs was based on conversations after the fact, including with authors of competing proposals. So, I believe that all of those who submitted winning NAP proposals were thinking about nationwide NAPs, but some may not have, based on the e-mail I received, included those thoughts in their proposals. At any rate, my thesis is that the concept of a nationwide layer-two solution has been around for several years, at least since the time that the NAP proposals were written. I might add, however, that we are collectively still learning about how best to make use of these very large layer-two services. -tjs