On Mon, 02 April 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote:

From the article: <quote> "Half of the companies that are multihomed should have gotten better service from their providers," says Patrik Faltstrom, a Cisco engineer and co-chair of the IETF's Applications Area. "ISPs haven't done a good enough job explaining to their customers that they don't need to multihome." </quote>

Why would a rational customer pay for a second connection (usually more than doubling their cost) if a single connection was satisfactory? Although providers try to vertically integrate their operations, time and time again, vertical integration tends to increase the risk for the customer. Mid-level providers serve an important function in the Internet hierarchy. Multi-homing works well with mid-level providers aggregating local routes, and managing redudancy between long-haul providers. If you don't use a mid-level provider, to achieve the same reliability you end up needing to be your own mid-level provider. Why can't a large provider operate their network as a set of mid-level networks, and connections to multiple long-haul networks. They could.