[NIC-960209.1757] Routing Problem (fwd)

Mon Feb 12 18:38:58 UTC 1996

On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Paul Ferguson wrote:

> Creating a consortium [akin to the NAP model] of small ISP's could
> easily resolve this problem, if all address space allocated to each
> ISP was contiguous and could be aggregated to a larger prefix.
> 
> This has been suggested on numerous occasions.

It's not only been suggested, but I believe it's been somewhat
implemented. :) Back in September '94, Chris Alan (Electriciti) and a few
others came up with an idea called PCH -- Packet Clearing House. 

The primary concept was, as you suggested, connect a bunch of small ISPs
together using shared resources and address space and peer with the "big
boyz."  Unfortunately I haven't been involved with it lately, so hopefully
someone that has can share if it was successful or not. 

-jh-