From: Jack Rickard[SMTP:jack.rickard@boardwatch.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 1996 4:09 PM To: 'Brian' Cc: 'bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com' Subject: NANOG Participation
Brian:
Here's what I think we can do for the NANOG members vis a vis the directory and ONE ISPCON that they might find attractive.
BACKGROUND
We had contacted NANOG earlier in the year regarding participation at the Online Networking Exposition and Internet Service Provider Convention scheduled for August 7-10 in San Francisco. Bill Norton had demurred on holding a NANOG event at ONE ISPCON, but had agreed to come present a briefing on NANOG activities.
In the June 17th issue of InfoWorld, columnist Bob Metcalfe noted rather
Hi all - At last NANOG we talked a little bit about network maps, contact info, etc. Brian Noto (BoardWatch) mailed me their latest BoardWatch directory, which lists a rather astounding number of ISPs across the U.S. along with some ISP history, contact #, services and prices, topology maps for some, etc. It looks pretty cool, and after talking with Brian, he agreed to make a copy of the directory available for free to the NANOG community (there is a form to fill out and e-mail below). Bill publicly the desireability of getting some dialog going between NANOG members and the rank and file small ISP's that make up the bulk of ONE ISPCON. He had also spoken directly with Bill Norton on this same subject at the NANOG meeting.
By way of explanation and disclaimer, Dr. Metcalfe is not connected with
Boardwatch Magazine or ONE, Inc., or ONE ISPCON in any financial sense, and is not responsible for our annual bevy of mistakes and miscues. But he does stand tall in our world quite beyond his role as InfoWorld columnist and Ethernet inventor. He has served a purely mentor/advisor role on our Executive Advisory Board and has spoken at our last two annual shows. He's also the smartest man I've ever met, in my unqualified but nonetheless strongly held opinion, and I routinely find myself tongue tied in his presence. Bottom line, if Bob wants it, we go into scramble mode to make it happen.
He thinks NANOG and ultimately the Internet could benefit from some level
of dialog between the "top of the net" and the little guys at the bottom hooking real people up. Here's my official "me too" then.
THE DIRECTORY
In March 1987, Boardwatch Magazine published a Directory of Internet
Service Providers - their first effort listing some 1447 Internet Service Providers who had actually been contacted by the publication and interviewed.
As a result of response to the first directory, the second issue, June
1996, was revised to include more detailed information about the architecture of the Internet. Nine "profiles" of large national backbone providers were added with color maps of their backbones, POP lists, product lists and prices, Internconnects, etc. along with a description of the NAP architecture. The directory listings had grown to some 2266 Internet Service Providers.
The directory has been sufficiently successful to warrant further
development and we are already working on the Fall issue. Bill Norton commented on the value of the architecture descriptions. In discussion with Norton, he thought we might find input from NANOG members valuable. Since anything we can do to make the depiction of the Internet more accurate and useful directly benefits our publishing efforts, we concur. So we are attempting to devise a kind of informal peer review process. The objective here is a bit questionable of course. We are trying to diagram and present a rational picture of the Internet two dimensionally on paper. We are bound to fail for obvious reasons, but hope to do so artfully. From Mr. Norton's response to our June efforts, I think we've achieved that. But we would like to improve it.
To do this, we've agreed to provide a free copy of the Directory of
Internet Service Providers to any NANOG member who cares to identify themselves. The book sells on the newsstand at $9.95 and we normally sell them directly at $9.95 plus $4 s&h. We will provide a copy via first class mail at our expense FREE to any NANOG member who requests one.
To obtain your review copy, send the following information to
BRIAN.NOTO@BOARDWATCH.COM
Name: Job Title: Company/Organization: Street Address: State/Province: Zip or Postal Code: Country: Voice Telephone: Fax: Electronic Mail:
Please note in the e-mail that you are a NANOG member. We will send a copy
of the June 1996 Spring issue, along with a brochure for ONE ISPCON via first class mail. We would appreciate any comments/critique to BRIAN.NOTO@BOARDWATCH.COM prior to August 1, 1996.
ONE ISPCON
ONE ISPCON is a very focused trade show specifically for Internet Service
Providers. It is NOT a general Internet show to get people together and talk about how cool the Internet is. We do have vendor exhibitors at Moscone including Cisco, DEC, Microsoft, Livingston, Bay Networks, U.S. Robotics, etc. - about 60 vendors as of June 15. We also have about 100 educational sessions slated including Mark Corbitt of the FCC, John C. Dvorak, David Graves and Kim Hubbard of NSI, and so on. Sessions will cover marketing, financing, and a lot of technical sessions on building local/regional NAPS, multihoming issues, ADSL, HDSL, wireless, etc. Again, the focus is on how to actually do this stuff as a small ISP - typically 12 employees and 1500 customers. We expect about 1000-1200 true Internet Service Providers, 400-500 ISP wannabees in the main convention/session schedule at San Francisco Hilton Towers, with 3000-4000 peripherally interested vendors, software developers, and assorted hangers on at the vendor exhibits in Moscone. The core "meeting" then at the Hilton will be relatively small and some three blocks distant from the vendor exhibits.
Registration is $425 until July 15th.
To encourage NANOG members to come see how the smaller half lives and
fulfill the Metcalfe initiative, we will discount this a full $100 to $325 for identified NANOG members registering by July 15.
MORE INFORMATION
More information is available at http://www.ispcon.com. The ONE, Inc.
office is available at (303)693-5253. Direct questions, particularly regarding session schedules and speakers to BRIAN.NOTO@BOARDWATCH.COM.
Jack Rickard Editor and Publisher, Boardwatch Magazine President, ONE, Inc.
===================================================== Jack Rickard Boardwatch Magazine Editor/Publisher 8500 West Bowles Ave., Ste 210 jack.rickard@boardwatch.com Littleton, CO 80123 303.973.6038 voice 303.973.3731 fax http://www.boardwatch.com ========================================================