Interconnects

Sun May 19 04:19:21 UTC 2002

On Sat, 18 May 2002, Mike Leber wrote:

> Also, when considering where to locate equipment I can't help but remind
> the other person posting about MNFX (which isn't the same corporate
> entitiy as PAIX) that they should have posted (if they were going to
> bother to post that kind of thing, which doesn't make friends ;) similar
> press releases regarding their other choices, or perhaps considering
> whether the companies they consider alternatives are EBITDA postive
> (making a profit, or in otherwords will exist in 12 months) today (not in
> an imaginary planned future) or for the few that are EBITDA positive,
> whether they actually seem to want your business.
> 
> PAIX, Palo Alto is another excellent exchange point.  I'm sure you can
> probably get a rack now with all the bankruptcies.  If not send me email.

At present, PAIX is owned by MFNX, and so is Abovenet. Arms-length or not,
ultimately it's the same ailing giant with clay feet...

The "other person posting" is glad to oblige by reposting a usenet news 
article written by an eyewitness who visited Metromedia Fiber/Abovenet's
San Jose II co-lo facility. Consider it friendly fire from some anti-spam
activist (credible source in your camp, if we were to believe the popular 
sentiment?):

>From: spambait at petra.dyndns.org (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email
Subject: Re: Abovenet/MFN dead at the switch
Date: 23 Mar 2002 19:11:33 GMT
Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <slrna9pkr6.1eo.spambait at pk.greens.org>
References: <8935cf7e.0203230809.30d2bfd1 at posting.google.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: p-884.newsdawg.com
X-Warning: I take time to damage spammers.
User-Agent: slrn/0.9.6.2 (Linux)

In article <8935cf7e.0203230809.30d2bfd1 at posting.google.com>, No spammage wrote:
>Are there any humans at Above.net/MFN, or is it all spambotically
>controlled?  I keep getting DirecTV spam for 208.185.127.162
>(ofertadirectv.iwarp.com) and the ignorebot keeps telling me that
>Above.net is happy with the way it's been settled.  Are they
>completely black hat?

I installed a server at their San Jose II co-lo in summer of 2000.
It was a beehive, with full cages and people carting stuff in
and lots of activity.  The area where my ISP's rack was was
nearly full.

My ISP switched providers a year later, because Above's senior
technical staff who had attracted them there had all left and
the service had deteriorated badly.  Almost all of the equipment
in the cages around us had already been removed.  The floor was
really dirty and there was trash everywhere, it looked like the
flea market when most of the vendors have left for the day.
While I was waiting for my ISP to come and badge me in,
I talked to the security guard.  He said they'd recently laid
off 30% and expected more.  He also said he hadn't seen any customer
bring any equipment into that facility in the last three months,
but he saw people removing stuff daily.

They're not black hat, they're empty hat.  There's nobody
left, and the last guy forgot to turn out the lights.

Cameron