Hello,
I'm curious about MAE-LA. It has the potential to be quiet big, but it never really kicked off. We were considering linking there, but with only 13 other providers, we decided not too.
Does anyone know why MAE-LA never really kicked off?
Define "Really Kicked Off" for me, if you would... According to http://www.mfsdatanet.com/MAE/la.fddi.overlay.html right now, MAE-LA is handling as much traffic as MAE-WEST did in November of 1995, about 20 months ago...see the following graph for historical data: http://www.mfsdatanet.com/MAE/west.mfs.951106.html If MAE-LA keeps up that growth rate, in two years it should be handling roughly 1Gb/sec through it during the day. I think you'd agree that at that point it would definitely have "kicked off"... It's all a question of scale. MAE-LA is doing quite nicely right now--I wouldn't recommend it as your _only_ connection to the net, unless you're using it to purchase transit connectivity out through one of the carriers there. But as a place to pass traffic to other players, it's quiet and reliable; once you connect and set up your peering, it's never gone down on us, we never have to think about it, unlike mae-west it doesn't cause early morning heartburn because someone tripped over an extension cord... :-( Bill raised some excellent concerns, however, about the overall wisdom of using the WorldCom supported MAEs in general. I know that if I were starting a company up at this point, I wouldn't recommend trying to hit all the MAEs, I'd do private connections to the major carriers, and screw trying to go default-free or anything silly like that--it takes too much time, too much effort, and your customers won't really be able to tell the difference anyhow. But then again, I'm just getting cynical at this hour. :-( Short answer to your original question, mae-la is doing perfectly well for what it is.
Keith
Matt Petach speaking from home, not representing anyone that anyone here might recognize...