It's my analysis that the problem is that small (T-1 and below) customers should be buying their connectivity from (and there should _be_, for them to buy it from) a local exchange-type provider. IE: buy a T-3 up hill to, oh, say, the top 6 or 10 backbones, and then sell transit to local ISPs and IAPs in your geographic area.
This doesn't seem to be technically difficult, and it seems like it ought to be pretty easy to sell... sure, you're one hop further from the backbone... but you're now two hops away from _10_.
Are there any major potholes in this theory that I'm missing?
A big problem here is that ISPs differentiate themselves based on who they buy bandwidth from. An ISP that has a T1 to CRL, say, benefits greatly when a larger competitor gets a T1 to CRL as well, but the larger competitor doesn't benefit if they already have multiple T1s and T3s to the larger backbones themselves. A better idea is a miniature NAP for the ISPs in each large metropolitan area for exchanging local traffic. Josh Beck - CONNECTnet Network Operations Center - jbeck@connectnet.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONNECTnet INS, Inc. Phone: (619)450-0254 Fax: (619)450-3216 6370 Lusk Blvd., Suite F-208 San Diego, CA 92121 -----------------------------------------------------------------------