On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 12:46:38PM -0500, Jeff Barrows wrote: [..]
- Miami Internet Exchange (FloridaMIX, a Bell South initiative for a distributed exchange.)
Last time I checked, both of these had essentially the same objective, with differences in the areas of architecture and personal interests. [..]
Since Deron and I are working on this project, please allow me to add a few things here. Perhaps they can clarify a few things. There's a perception here that by design the NAP is intended to be a carrier jail or trap. That's not the case. And I don't think it is just Deron or myself suffering from amnesia at the moment ;-). The intent is to provide an exchange point where you can colo or participate from off-site in an existing carrier hotel or data center or whatever. And this is one of the dominating criteria in the design. The choice which one you select is yours depending on what your specifc preferences are. We try to be very flexible to the point that we are location independant, but there are probably some economic realities which will set in soone or later. The Florida-MIX is designed to provide several different ways of connecting to the NAP, and I am not aware of any restrictions which tie you to a particular carrier. In fact, we're trying to provide a peering service which is not tied to any transport in particular, and extend peering beyond IPv4 to MPLS & IPv6 etc. The current plans is to introduce these services in phases during the course of 2001. I understand (and since I wasn't born into this company, I also share) some of the feelings and reservations against RBOCs. However, I think in BellSouth.net's defence, there are several fine IP geeks working on this project, and a lot of brains and effort spent on worrying about how to make this successful and we're trying our very best to do this right (and it doesn't just stop at giving the exchange enough bw, it is also a matter of making the operations side working smoothly and efficient). I'll rather quit here before I sound like I'm spewing PR BS. So, I would like to extend the offer to anyone interested and with specific comments or questions to contact Deron and/or myself so that we may try to answer them as best as we can. I think it is foolish to believe that any one organization has all the answers and we welcome feedback and input. Cheers, Chris -- Christian Kuhtz <ck@arch.bellsouth.net> -wk, <ck@gnu.org> -hm Sr. Architect, Engineering & Architecture, BellSouth.net, Atlanta, GA, U.S. "I speak for myself only.""