History of private peering and exchanges?

Howard C. Berkowitz hcb at clark.net
Fri Feb 23 13:39:36 UTC 2001


Between fading memories and NDA's, it can be hard to track how things 
happened...but I'm trying to put together some timelines about 
interprovider peering both through private peering (i.e., at what 
point it became economic to meet other than through ARPANET/NSFNET) 
and at exchanges.

In the beginning, of course, there was the ARPANET.

Then there was the NSFNET.  The NAPs were the first recognizable 
exchange points, with AUPs.   NAPs were linked by VBNS.

CIX came later, without the AUP restrictions of NSFNET.  My 
impression is that bandwidth into it, at first, was quite limited.

At some point, there started to be a business case for large 
providers to interconnect with bilateral private links as well as at 
exchanges.  When did such links first get used for commercial 
traffic? In the beginning, were they short-haul connections between 
cages in exchanges, or WAN links between major provider hubs?  I'm 
referring here only to interprovider links, not to transit customers.

Also in the timeline was the advent of true "local" or "metro" 
exchanges.  Going through the archives, the first I see was Tucson. 
Was that indeed the first cooperative exchange intended to reduce 
backhaul?




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