Say bye-bye to the concept of peering, huh?
I look at it more as "now the Justice Department has single large target."
Yes, with nice, large, concentric circles painted on the appropriate part
of the anatomy 
Frankly, this could be a *good* thing for the industry. Among other things
large organizations have a habit and history of being unable to perceive
and act on market-based changes quickly enough to capitalize on them.
They tend to act like 900lb Gorillas instead, which is great if you're into
slow, plodding things, and not so good if you aren't fast enough to get
stepped on. But eventually, stepping on people draws the fire of people
on the DOJ side of the fence.
stepped on. But eventually, stepping on people draws the fire of people
on the DOJ side of the fence.
Not unless those that are stepped on squawk early, often and loudly. So in
case some of you with an opinion on this subject don't know who to express it
to here are some contacts at the DOJ.
Scott Sacks
Asst. Chief Computer & Finance Section
202-307-6132
His Staffer
Kent Brown
202-307-6146
Fax 202-616-8544
202-616-5980
Anti-Trust Division
Joel Kline
202-514-2410
Richard Irvine 202-307-6153
richard.irvine@usdoj.gov
Doug Melamed
202-514-2401
I agree, I think this is a good thing for many NSPs. It is going to be a
HUGE job to combine UUNET, ANS, and Internet MCI. They have huge hardware
differences. ANS with the new BAY BCN hardware that they spent a large
time developing, MCI with their large Stratacom network, and UUNet with
their new Fore network. They all connect customers in a different way, it
will take some time to bring all of that together. There will be major
outages and problems associated with this merger. It will be a big change
for other backbone providers to come in a take some of their customers
base. It also will be easier to watch 1 big gorilla then 3 smaller ones.
-Nathan
This may not be good IMO..
If these 2 (or 3) of the larger transport providers consolidate their
networks completely, what about the loss of multiple paths and greater
potential for outages without redundancy? Instead of going via MCI's
backbone or via UUNet's (or whoever) they are all then one and the same.
I realize that combining doesn't mean eliminating one of them, but if they
are managed by a single entity...
...The potential for an enormous outage would be much greater. All of
these spoken of providers carry a decent amount of Internet traffic (not
going to make a guess, since we just had that thread about how "accurate"
statistics are..)
- - Josh Richards / jrichard@fix.net / Finger for PGP key -
- - Systems Administrator / FIX Net / http://www.fix.net -
YES, that is my point. I think the potential for outages is much greater,
I also think that in the process of merging them together there will be
major outages and problems. That is why I think other backbone providers
will be able to pull customers from Worldcom. It is possible that
internetMCI, ANS, and UUNet all would be operated as separate units, but I
don't think so. The cost savings of one network is very large, and
Worldcom will want that savings. This will benefit other backbone
providers, because they will be able to acquire ANS, UUNet, and
internetMCI customers when Worldcom runs into the merging problems.
-Nathan
What tune are you guys whistling in the dark? Theme from Jaws? --Kent
Haven't we skipped over sharks and gorillas to the Borg? Or does Bill have
the rights to that? -- Howard