I think the term "interconnect" is fairly generic. I have often heard some of the providers refer to the MAEs and NAPs as "public interconnects"...

However, I think folks use the term "MAE" and "NAP" to refer to different implementations of a "public interconnect"... It is probably an oversimplification to say they are all the same thing.

When the TLA's are expanded into their actual meanings, Metropolitan Area Exchange, and Network Access Point, there does not appear to be a great deal of difference between the two, except that one is a term that MFS Datanet started, and the other is one that the government sited as the term for the exchanges they were helping to fund/promote. I tend to agree with what you say about implentation, but there are exceptions to every rule (The Sprint NAP uses MAE-like technology). The Tucson NAP uses a mixture of NAP-like and MAE-like ideas, but also is not funded by the NSF. The choice of naming had little to do with technical implementation style, that much is certain. As for the original topic, other regional exchanges, perhaps Eric at Structured would like to talk about the Northwest Internet eXchange? (NIX) Eric? Dave -- Dave Siegel President, RTD Systems & Networking, Inc. (520)623-9663 Network Engineer -- Regional/National NSPs (Cisco) dsiegel@rtd.com User Tracking & Acctg -- "Written by an ISP, http://www.rtd.com/~dsiegel/ for an ISP."