Andrew,
Earlier this week I had a meeting with the ex-Director of the Network Operations Center for MFS-Datanet/MCI whose tenure was through 1999. From 1994 to 1998 they were re-architeching the Frame Relay and ATM networks to handle the growth in traffic including these new facilities called peering points of MAE-East and MAE-West. From roughly 1990 to then end of 1996 they saw traffic on their switches grow at 50-70% growth every 6 months. By the last half of 1996 there was a head of line blocking problem on the DEC FDDI switches that was "regularly" bringing down the Internet. The architecture had lower traffic circuits were going through concentrators while higher traffic circuits were directly attached to ports on the switchs.
MFS-Datanet was not going to take the hit for the interruptions to the Internet and was going to inform the trade press there was a problem with DEC FDDI switches so Digital "gave" six switches for the re-architecture of the MAEs to solve the problem. Once this problem was solved the first quarter of 1997 saw a 70% jump in traffic that quarter alone. This "historical event" would in my memory be the genesis of the 100% traffic growth in 100 days legend. (So it was only 70% in 90 days which for the marketing folks does not cut it so 100% in 100 days sounds much better?? 
)
MCI bought MFS-Datanet because MCI had the customers and MFS-Datanet had all of the fiber running to key locations at the time and could drastically cut MCI's costs. UUNET "merged" with MCI and their traffic was put on this same network. MCI went belly up and Verizon bought the network.
Personal Note: from 1983 to 90 I worked for Hayes the modem folks and became the Godfather to Ascend communications with Jeanette, Rob, Jay and Steve whose team produced the TNT line of modem/ISDN to Ethernet central site concentrators (in the early ninties) that drove a large portion of the user traffic to the Internet at the time, generating the "bubble".
John (ISDN) Lee
Although not directly involved in the MCI Internet operations, I read all the announcements that came across the email when I worked at MCI from early 1993 to late 1998.
My recollection is that Worldcom bought out MFS. UUnet was a later acquisition by the Worldcom monster (no, no biases here :-). While this was going on MCI was building and running what was called the BIPP (Basic IP Platform) internally. That product was at least reasonably successful, enough so that some gummint powers that be required divestiture of the BIPP from the company that would come out of the proposed acquisition of MCI by Worldcom. The regulators felt that Worldcom would have too large a share of the North American Internet traffic. The BIPP went with BT IIRC, and I think finally landed in Global Crossing's assets.
--Chris
Correct order of (in)digestion UUNet > MFS > Worldcom >< MCI > Verizon.
There were other multi-way acquisitions in-between as well (CNS, ANS, etc.)
-Randy.
Chris Boyd <cboyd@gizmopartners.com> writes:
My recollection is that Worldcom bought out MFS. UUnet was a later
acquisition by the Worldcom monster (no, no biases here :-).
MFS acquired UUnet Technologies on 12 August 1996.
On 31 December 1996, MFS "merged with and into WorldCom, Inc" although
it sure looked like an acquisition to those of us who were watching
from the sidelines.
-r
MCI bought MFS-Datanet because MCI had the customers and
MFS-Datanet had all of the fiber running to key locations at the
time and could drastically cut MCI's costs. UUNET "merged" with MCI
and their traffic was put on this same network. MCI went belly up
and Verizon bought the network.
Although not directly involved in the MCI Internet operations, I read
all the announcements that came across the email when I worked at MCI
from early 1993 to late 1998.
My recollection is that Worldcom bought out MFS. UUnet was a later
acquisition by the Worldcom monster (no, no biases here :-). While
this was going on MCI was building and running what was called the
BIPP (Basic IP Platform) internally. That product was at least
reasonably successful, enough so that some gummint powers that be
required divestiture of the BIPP from the company that would come out
of the proposed acquisition of MCI by Worldcom. The regulators felt
that Worldcom would have too large a share of the North American
Internet traffic. The BIPP went with BT IIRC, and I think finally
landed in Global Crossing's assets.
What happened to VBNS in all of this ?
Marshall
Actually, Cable & Wireless acquired the BIPP after regulators forced Worldcom to divest one of their networks. C&W developed a new network architecture as an evolution of BIPP called "N3", based on MPLS as an ATM replacement for TE. (Perhaps somebody that worked at C&W back then can comment on N3; I can't recall what it stood for.) After a few years, C&W reorganized their American operations into a separate entity, which subsequently went bankrupt. Savvis (my current employer) bought the assets out of bankruptcy court. We then upgraded the N3 network to support better QoS, higher capacity, etc, and call it the "ATN" (Application Transport Network). The current Savvis core network, AS3561, is thus the evolved offspring of the MCI Internet Services / Internet-MCI network.
Of course, before all of this, MCI built the network as a commercial Internet platform in parallel to their ARPA network. That's before my time, unfortunately, so I don't know many details. For instance I'm uncertain how the ASN has changed over the years. Anybody with more history and/or corrections would be appreciated.
Cheers,
-Benson
Worldcom bought MFS.
Worldcom bought MCI.
Worldcom bought UUnet.
In your statement s/MCI/Worldcom/g
I don't know if UUnet was part of Worldcom when MO first made statements about backbone growth, but I do know that internetMCI was still part of MCI and therefore, MCI was not a part of Worldcom. May seem like splitting hairs to some, but it is important to a few of us to point out that we never worked under Ebbers. Not that we had a choice :-).
Growth of the NAPs during this period is a poor indicator of growth. Because of the glitch you mention in carrying capacity the tier 1's all but abandoned the NAPs for peering between themselves and from that point forward (mid '97) preferred direct peering arrangements.
jy
I think for most of us iMCI'ers its a very big diffrence that iMCI != MCIWorldcom
-jim
BIPP was sold to C&W where it continued to use MCI transmission and facilities. In November 2000, C&W had rebuilt it on their own facilities (just a bit larger). Quite soon after the completion of the new network in 2000, C&W marketing was forecasting the need for a network that was ten times the size of their current backbone (the new network was four times the size of the original iMCI). C&W was chapter 7 within 12 months. BTW: C&W sued Worldcom and won a $250M settlement on the basis that MCI had hidden the iMCI sales and marketing team in the sale.
The assets of C&W were sold to Savvis.
jy
CIP went with BT (Concert) I still clearly remember the very long
concall when we separated it from it BIPP connections.
-jim
MCI and BT had a long courtship. BT left MCI standing at the altar after neighborhoodMCI (a consumer last mile play) announced $400M in losses, twice. WorldCom swooped in after that.
jy
N3 = new network nodes, BIPP wasn't that great a name either.
The ASN was always 3561.
jy