On Thu, 24 Oct 1996 18:26:12 -0400 (EDT) Gordon Cook wrote:
Cook: six global providers: Hmmm. Might they be referring to Sprint, AGIS UUNET, PSI, MCI, and ANS? The so called gang or club of six that a year ago were the exclusive direct peers at all the major exchanges? If they are, then, by process of elimnation, BBN is not a global provider -which I think is news to BBN, nor is AT&T, nor is Advantis, nor is Compuserve, nor are a lot of other major players with more than a fresh12.5 million behind them. Gee. I wonder if BBN realizes that AGIS has relegated it to second rank status?
Or perhaps they are referring to those global providers who are beginning to move most of their traffic through private inter connects - and in so doing are becoming a new internet apex? In this case they are not even one of the five let alone six. Here the five are MCI, Sprint, BBN, UUNET and ANS. I have been talking to a lot of sources, none of which is aware of AGIS having any private Interconnects with these five.
When talking of global Internet reach, the largest is IBM/Advantis IGN. They have 830 POPs in over 50 countries and peerings at about 15 major interconnect points. For details see: http://www.ibm.com/globalnetwork/inetbbon.htm Probably the best kept secret in the Internet world. Hank Nussbacher IBM Israel