Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 22:02:47 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tim Salo <salo@networkcs.com>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Subject: Re: different thinking on exchanging traffic
[...]
I believe that all four of the winning NSFNET NAP submissions proposed
nationwide "NAPs". I believe that the reason they didn't happen is that
the NSF asked for and assumed it would get four geographically-focused
solutions. I suspect that the notion of awarding four NAPs, all of which
covered all of the country, provided the NSF a certain amount of heartburn.
I believe that the nationwide NAP concept died, (or was killed), at the
time for administrative, not technical, reasons. But, this is all
speculation on my part...
[...]
A presumably well informed observer sent me private e-mail that questioned
my account.
I read only one of the winning NAP proposals, the one I worked on. My
speculation that all of the winning proposals talked about nationwide
NAPs was based on conversations after the fact, including with authors
of competing proposals. So, I believe that all of those who submitted
winning NAP proposals were thinking about nationwide NAPs, but some may
not have, based on the e-mail I received, included those thoughts in
their proposals.
At any rate, my thesis is that the concept of a nationwide layer-two
solution has been around for several years, at least since the time that
the NAP proposals were written. I might add, however, that we are
collectively still learning about how best to make use of these very
large layer-two services.
-tjs