Perhaps I'm being a little defensive..
An obvious result of deliberation on the issues at hand would be to simply relabel the things as MAE/GIX/NAP and be done with it.
Any such arrangement would of course be contingent on an agreement between the entity that has contracted with MFS to provide MAE-East, and the entity (NSF) who have a cooperative agreement with MFS to furnish the DC NAP service. NSF would welcome the opportunity to open talks that might lead to such an agreement.
"Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." So, other than confusing the issue, exactly how do I, as an existing MAE-East participant, win from this arrangement? Mind you, I don't speak for "MAE-East", but MAE-East connects ISPs, and the NSF isn't an ISP, right? We could talk about letting an RA connect to MAE-East, but they're not an ISP, either. I'm sure MFS would be just as happy to take your money to provide MAE-East service as they would NAP service. I'm sure their interest is in keeping their customers happy, and not trying to reduce the number of products that they offer. On some other points, the technology used to deliver MAE-East+ is significantly different than what MFS proposed for the NAP, and the service is structured differently. The MAE-East+ technology is somewhat more conservative in its approach. It also encourages private provider/provider connectivity since the high-bandwidth participants will be colocated in adjacent racks. That's not to say that the technology used to deliver a NAP won't work; Alternet has actually tested the hardware because we may end up using it for other applications. Mostly its the KISS principal at work. Other than that, both the NAP and MAE-East do move level-2 frames around. Are there providers that wouldn't connect to MAE-East because it's missing the blessed "NAP" moniker? If so, the political forces at work inside that provider are eclipsing the technical issues, and I'd think twice about connecting my net to them. Their job is to move the bits around, first and foremost. A more interesting question is to find out which carriers are connecting to all 3 mandatory NAPs, and to find out if they're already connected to MAE-East. If they are, then what's left to do? Other than slather on "NAP" baggage that we don't want or need? Since these interconnect points already exist, and a so similar to the NAPs, why are the NAPs required at all since private industry has already gone off and solved this problem without any help. "Stop trying to help me. It's not broken, and doesn't need to be fixed." If there is some clear gain in somehow combining these two things, please let me know. I don't think that an RA qualifies as a "gain" since we have an existance proof that we can get along without one of those already. A more interesting prospect to consider is hooking together MAE-East and, say, the FIX. That *might* actually help. Louis A. Mamakos louie@alter.net Backbone Architecture & Engineering Guy uunet!louie AlterNet / UUNET Technologies, Inc. 3110 Fairview Park Drive., Suite 570 Voice: +1 703 204 8023 Falls Church, Va 22042 Fax: +1 703 204 8001