Well, connecting to an Internet backbone and having your own nationalwide backbone are two different things. It is even extremely difficult to define what is Internet backbone. Are MCI and Sprint connected to backbone? I think that not only they are, they also have their own DS3 backbone. Is company like Aimnet connected to backbone? Well, we have DS3s to PacBell NAP and MAE West, and of course think that we are connected to backbone although we do not have our own backbone. But we do not claim that we have Internet backbone. Hong Aimnet -------- Begin Included Message -------
At 10:32 AM 4/5/96, William Allen Simpson wrote:
From: Avi Freedman <freedman@netaxs.com> ... Everyone (of importance) agrees that in order to claim you're a backbone you have to (now, not a year ago) be connected to at least 2 public NAPs/MAEs and have at least one circuit that runs at DS3 or higher speed.
No, that is not correct.
A US Internet "backbone" is one which connects to ALL the NAP/MAEs in the US. Not just two. All of them.
Bill,
I'm not sure that's a viable definition. First, the number of MAE's seems to be increasing withou bound, and secondly, there are points that you don't want to connect due to their performance. Finally, is "connecting" considered the same as "peering"?
/John
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Last time this term came up, I opined that there was no "backbone" any more and that 1996's Internet had a "hairball topology." Vadim, among others, disagreed with me but we didn't pursue the topic. Perhaps we should have. Back in the dimming prehistory of the universe, there was a "backbone" in the sense that AS690 really mattered and if you didn't have someone sending your routes into ANS (or NSFnet or ARPAnet, depending on the month and year) then you could not really say that you were "on the Internet" since most folks would not be able to reach you. There is no such AS in 1996. And in that sense, there is no backbone in 1996. What we have these days is a _whole_bunch_ of AS's such that if any one of them does not receive your routes somehow, then you aren't "on the Internet" since a whole lot of other end hosts will not be able to reach your end hosts. Sprint, MCI, ANS, Alternet, PSI, and AGIS come to mind. (There are others.) Terminologically speaking, there's no discrete set of wires or routers or companies you can point to and say, "there, that right there, that is the Internet Backbone." We tend to reserve the term "NSP" for folks who peer at enough NAPs that they have no default route and aren't buying transit from anybody. We tend to use the term "ISP" when we mean someone in the packet or even the session business who _does_ have to buy transit from somebody. Once in a while I hear the term "backbone provider" used synonomously with "NSP" (as defined above). I am not even going to get started (here and now, at least) on the subject of peering politics/economics. I just thought I'd chime in on the definitions of the words we're all using.
On Fri, 5 Apr 1996, Paul A Vixie wrote:
Last time this term came up, I opined that there was no "backbone" any more and that 1996's Internet had a "hairball topology." Vadim, among others, disagreed with me but we didn't pursue the topic. Perhaps we should have.
This is what I have said. I think there is 'no' backbone but there are many NSPs that have connections to the major NAPs. There are also compaines that connect to more than two NSPs and NAPs. Lets fiqure this out, is there no 'backbone' or is there a 'backbone'?
And in that sense, there is no backbone in 1996.
Agreed
We tend to reserve the term "NSP" for folks who peer at enough NAPs that they have no default route and aren't buying transit from anybody. We tend to use the term "ISP" when we mean someone in the packet or even the session business who _does_ have to buy transit from somebody. Once in a while I hear the term "backbone provider" used synonomously with "NSP" (as defined above).
I think it should be NSP.They have National Netowrks, we have State wide netowrks. Simple. Christian Nielsen Vyzynz International Inc. cnielsen@vii.com,CN46,KB7HAP Phone 801-568-0999 Fax 801-568-0953 Private Email - Christian@Nielsen.Net BOFH - cnielsen@one.dot PS :)
Last time this term came up, I opined that there was no "backbone" any more and that 1996's Internet had a "hairball topology." Vadim, among others, disagreed with me but we didn't pursue the topic. Perhaps we should have.
...
"backbone provider" used synonomously with "NSP" (as defined above).
I think it should be NSP.They have National Netowrks, we have State wide netowrks. Simple.
Regardless of whatever terminology is eventually decided here, it won't make a damn bit of difference anywhere else...unless we subscribe to Dillon's idea of releasing Press Releases (which I do not suggest). I think we have enough terms to understand each other. We have backbones, NSP's, the default-less core, a core provider, ... and we have ISPs, IAPs, Content Providers, ... and we have Online Service Providers, ... and we have a whole bunch of other people who are doing things on the 'net that don't deserve to be called any of those things. ;-) We know who belongs in these groups, and who does not. What the general public believes is up to those that do the marketing. ... and those that bother to educate, may win in the end (maybe not if they are spending their time arguing it here rather than where it counts). Dave -- Dave Siegel Sr. Network Engineer, RTD Systems & Networking (520)623-9663 Network Consultant -- Regional/National NSPs dsiegel@rtd.com User Tracking & Acctg -- "Written by an ISP, http://www.rtd.com/~dsiegel/ for an ISP."
As Vadim corrected pointed out in a earlier post, the Internet is a routing hierarchy. This hierarchy is *dynamic* and not static. Hence, a 'Tier 4' (as Micheal suggests) maybe a 'Tier 6' in two years... It is not practical to define numerical based Tiers, any more than it is practical to say 200/2=100, 100/2=50, 50/2=25.... okay lets stop now, cause NANOG defined fractional division 'tier 4' as the end user in a press release (?) and told the world that you cannot divide 25 by 2... *not allowed*. FYI, 'a backbone' is not a completely definable entity. Is it an abstraction. Discussing the exact defination of an abstraction is much like playing with a Rubic's cube, a nice way to kill time.... BTW. Abstract concepts allow for creative thinking, growth, and other conceptual events. Taking abstractions and trying to turn them into strict constructs and structures limits the creative processes, ad infinitum. Oh well, now back to another round of..... "Name that Abstraction". Regards, Tim
participants (5)
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Christian Nielsen -
Dave Siegel -
Hong Chen -
Paul A Vixie -
Tim Bass