different thinking on exchanging traffic

Wed May 27 03:41:09 UTC 1998

> Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 22:02:47 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Tim Salo <salo at networkcs.com>
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Re: different thinking on exchanging traffic
> 	[...]
> I believe that all four of the winning NSFNET NAP submissions proposed
> nationwide "NAPs".  I believe that the reason they didn't happen is that
> the NSF asked for and assumed it would get four geographically-focused
> solutions.  I suspect that the notion of awarding four NAPs, all of which
> covered all of the country, provided the NSF a certain amount of heartburn.
> I believe that the nationwide NAP concept died, (or was killed), at the
> time for administrative, not technical, reasons.  But, this is all
> speculation on my part...
> 	[...]

A presumably well informed observer sent me private e-mail that questioned
my account.

I read only one of the winning NAP proposals, the one I worked on.  My
speculation that all of the winning proposals talked about nationwide
NAPs was based on conversations after the fact, including with authors
of competing proposals.  So, I believe that all of those who submitted
winning NAP proposals were thinking about nationwide NAPs, but some may
not have, based on the e-mail I received, included those thoughts in 
their proposals.

At any rate, my thesis is that the concept of a nationwide layer-two
solution has been around for several years, at least since the time that
the NAP proposals were written.  I might add, however, that we are
collectively still learning about how best to make use of these very
large layer-two services.

-tjs