Technically, I believe that this is doable. Using FDDI in NYC would cause the fewest technical issues. Note that if the DS3 is to be filled, it may require more than a 4700.

Please note that this does not constitute an endorsement of the strategy or of the 'taste' of such an operation. ;-)

Tony

...

Here is a question.. a strange one, no less.

Is it feasible to do this:

WASHINGTON DC NEW YORK CITY

| B R I D G E | MAE -- 100 Mb/s -- | Cisco | -DS3- | Cisco | -- FDDI or -- (multiple East FDDI | 4700M | | 4700M | 100Base T peers) giga Switch

Why? here's why.

Several folks in the same building in NYC want to connect to MAE-East. But, we all don't want T1's or 10 Meg HLI to MAE-East, but DS3. So, this allows us all to connect to the MAE, peer directly with others without an intermediary ASN, and we can split the cost of the routers and the DS3.

I know (at least, I can't think of any reason it can't be done) that is can be done. The unanswered questions are:

1) Will MFS allow us to connect multiple Peers on the same FDDI port (from thier webpage, it looks like it, but I am not sure).

2) Is there any technical reason that the above is bad?

3) Because we do it the way shown above, does that make us look less attractive (politically) ?

Thanks for any input on this. If there is anything I am missing, please slap me. Thanks.

Ick! 1. Talk to WCOM for answers. 2. L2 media segmentation is a "fun" troubleshooting problem Geographic seperation of various media that compose an exchange have led to most of the extended outages. Its even more fun when the various sites are managed by diverse parties. 3. Depends on your politics and those in whose sandbox you wish to play. Are you willing to subscribe to the same operational policies as the other sites that comprise MAE-EAST? I'll note in passing that several exchanges, in and out of the US, have a geographically distributed model. Generally the designs are not based on clusters of clients wanting to interconnect. --bill