Deepak Jain <deepak@jain.com> wrote:

I suspect that they will be going completely switched and have very few total points on the whole network (depending on what configuration they go to). A network of OC12s or OC48s in a redundant star will have significant performance benefits because 1) no routing, or very symmetric routing.

Except for what is in the center. Or is piling trouble into one place makes less of it? I guess just opposite.

2) very low latency <8ms coast to coast I'd suspect.

Sure, dude. Faster than light networks are coming. FYI, latency in rouetrs in the existing backbones is only about 15% of wire dalays.

3) priority queues, quality of service, reserved bandwidth, etc.

And nice salaries to the activists and "research" grants for something any qualified network engineer knows as A-B-C.

I am not even touching the Mae-East at 30% fantasy. All I know is that the UUNet <--> Sprint OC3 private connect at Tysons Corner is at better than 24Mbits average and mostly limited to router CPU problems.

FYI, that interconnect _is_ a part of planned extension of MAE-East which is conviniently located next to Tysons Corner (Tysons Corner is a shopping mall). The ablility to bypass shared medium by simply dragging a 10' piece of cable is why the colocated IXP architecture was selected in the first place. --vadim