MFS Datanet provides the service known as MAE-East to a group of customers who created and define it by what they are willing to pay for. There is no single entity which "owns" it in any real sense. MFS owns the facilities which provide the service, but MAE-East as a concept is really more of a cooperative and there isn't any obvious "owner".
OK. Customers, no owner. Same arrangement MFS has with NAP-attachers.
This is precisely why MFS got in seriously hot water with the MAE-East customers when they wanted to rename MAE-East the DC NAP - MAE-East ain't truly theirs to rename in a very real sense.
Rightly so. How do you feel about language such as "MAE-East, a.k.a. DC NAP"? Or maybe just not worry about names?
That's what make responding to your otherwise quite reasonable request rather tricky, short of convening a MAE-East customer plenary, which MFS *has* undertaken once before (when the group was rather smaller).
Are the MAE-East participants required to subscribe to CIX-like "must carry" and "no settlements" agreements? Or - more to the point - have they agreed not to enter into bi- or multi-lateral agreements with other IP carriers they may stumble across on the MFS DC infrastructure. I.e., is it permissible for some or all of the MAE-East participant/customers to make "arrangements" with some or all of the DC NAP customers? If so, that's the desired (by NSF) result; I'll shut up and stay out of the way, and let the historians worry about what was named what. If not, perhaps we can find a way to negotiate in absurdity avoidance mode. -s