Re: value of colo. Sometimes it's helpful to use a colo as a mini-POP and drag lines out to local customers or to other colo members who want to buy transit. A NAP with enough space to rent whole cages seems like something a lot of people would want -- down at WilTel they really frown on private wires between cages and they don't own a GIGAswitch. Re: fast packet data services. The telcos have really screwed the pooch with ISDN, SMDS, and ATM. I'm not sure why F-R has worked well without years of delay, but it's a real anomoly. I have little if any confidence that I will be able to buy OC3 speed ATM and use it to contact 200 (or even 20) metro-area NAP partners any time this century. ISP's who practice conservative engineering (i.e., safe sex) will continue to buy the fastest telco pipes they can get _among_those_which_actually_work_ and this is probably going to be raw fibre before it starts to be 155Mb ATM. I'm not in love with the idea of a barn full of routers all hooked up to a GIGAswitch milking machine, but I have to prefer the config that works. I know that after years of trauma and chaos and delay, we now have a couple of NAPs implemented on an ATM mesh. If I ever see an ATM NAP come online with dozens of 155Mb/s members and no chaos, trauma or delay, I promise to post a full apologia here.