If I recall, the objection was to using ATM for a exchange fabric, because
several people thought it was less reliable at the time. I thought UUNET
was at the New York NAP (SPRINT Pennsauken, NJ) as well as the MAE-East
alternate NAP, which used FDDI.
There were several ISPs at that time which only connected to FDDI/Gigaswitch
based exchange points, and shunned the ATM exchange points.
Sean Donelan wrote:
> .... Some companies (notably UUnet) thought
> this was gratuitous enough that they never showed up at any NAPs.If I recall, the objection was to using ATM for a exchange fabric, because
several people thought it was less reliable at the time. I thought UUNET
was at the New York NAP (SPRINT Pennsauken, NJ) as well as the MAE-East
alternate NAP, which used FDDI.There were several ISPs at that time which only connected to FDDI/Gigaswitch
based exchange points, and shunned the ATM exchange points.
As best as I remember, the NY NAP that ended up in NJ was originally
supposed to be ATM, but they couldn't get it to work and were behind
schedule, so they "temporarily" deployed some FDDI.
ATM didn't work very well in Chicago, either....
I also vaguely recall that the 4th regional NAP was supposed to be in
the South, and somebody in Texas was selected, but MAE-East shouldered
them aside during the resolution process. Much speculation about
whether it was political rather than technical.
At the time we were developing the architecture for the NY NAP ATM was
supported only via that nasty DXI interface. Costly, less reliable, and not
easy to configure. Some of you may recall Tim Salo's working group
discussions in that regard.
I recall seeing a UUnet router at the Sprint NAP. At least, that's what the
dymo label on the front of the 7505 said!
Steven