NANOG Participants - Does the NANOG community have opinions regarding whether the WorldCom/MCI merger will result in what effectively could be considered a "monopoly" of the Internet's backbone? Say, for argument, that WorldCom/MCI merger will result in its control of 60% of the Internet's backbone traffic (measured, perhaps, as a percentage of IP packets taken from all ingress "access ISPs" and provided to all egress "access ISPs"). Is there real concern that this type of backbone "control" will negatively affect ISPs in the short-, medium-, or long-term? Does, for example, Qwest's planned deployment of a fiber infrastructure to become the "World's Biggest Internet Backbone" (WebWeek, Vol. 3, Issue 37, Nov. 10, 1997, p. 1) make such fears unfounded? Thanks in advance for any public or private responses on this inquiry. - Randy Bloomfield (303) 497-5489, randy@its.bldrdoc.gov (Note: inquiry supports a technical research initiative of the Instiute for Telecommunication Sciences (Boulder, CO), a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce)