That's pretty much the nightmare scenario for the long-haul networks. Frictionless capitalism with buying decision being made by machines, i.e. routers, based on the current state of the network. The product (long haul packet transport) becomes a total commodity with non-existent customer loyalty. Kewl. Dirk On Fri, 17 Jan 1997, David Schwartz wrote:
I could equally well see a colo center where the plan is to run a DS3 to the colo center, put a router there, and buy transit from as many providers as you wanted by connecting to each provider's switch. For example, a room where Sprint, MCI, BBNPlanet, PSI, Netcom, and whoever else wanted to come would each have their own Ethernet switch or Gigaswitch.
ISPs could then colo a router at the center and with no telco loop cost obtain transit connections from whatever combination of providers they wished. If the operators of the colo center had their own regional OC48 sonet ring, the cost to bring a DS3 to the center could be quite low for both ISPs and the big boys.
DS
On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Michael Dillon wrote:
I guess I was visualizing something quite different from current exchanges. Rather than have an Ethernet switch I was thinking of using Ethernet point-to-point. And the exchange point was more like a big colo center in which you could set up as many private interconnects as you want at the lowest possible cost (interface ports plus installing a cable versus running T1's or DS3's across town).