It really is about time that some of the larger ISP's started following
the lead of folks like netaxs.com and become aggregate providers for
local ISP's in their cities. This way the aggregator can be doubly and
triply homed and deal with all the BGP4 nastiness. The ISP's gain the
benefit of that multihoming to their city and in addition can get some of
the redundancy-in-case-of-failure by buying a T1 and frame relay, or a T1
and ISDN dialup to their aggregate provider.
Not just netaxs.com...
Also tlg.net in CA
And cais.net in Baltimore/The DC area
And new-york.net in the NY/Jersey area
Of course, all of us are selling these connections, so it's not strictly
that we're waking up in the morning saying "We need to be aggregate providers
for all of the local ISPs to preserve global routing table space". I think
the motivation is more to:
a) Enhance reachability to local content/customers by slapping them on
our network;
b) Make it easier (as you say) for new/existing ISPs to get most of
the advantages of being multiply-connected to the 'net without
paying the cost or having to buy or earn the clues;
c) Support the infrastructures we'd like to/need to have; and
d) Yes, even make some money.
Every ISP wants to have a backup connection and right now most assume
that multi-homing is the only way to achieve this.
When someone connects into us with a dedicated line we encourage them to
get a 56k or T1 frame mapped into us for use strictly as a backup - and
preferably from another LEC.
I believe that a middle-tier between the ISP and the NSP is the best way
to achieve this and could very well decrease global routing table size.Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com
Avi