Re: Inter-exchange media types

[Andrew Partan <asp () partan com>]

> we would
> soon reach the point where the individual 100Mb/s ports were just too full.

Some of the larger providers (like MCI, Sprint, & AlterNet) are
there (or nearly there) already.

My understanding is that the providers that are pushing lots & lots
of bits between them are going off & implementing a number of
point-to-point links to offload traffic from the interconnects.

I've heard that MCI & Sprint are putting up something like 6 T3s
between themselves; that MCI & AlterNet are doing 4 T3s; and that
Sprint & AlterNet are doing 2 T3s.  There may be other folks doing
similar things.  [AlterNet has had a number of private peering in
place for years - to folks like NEARnet, BARRNet, Sesquinet, &
THEnet.]

Once these are in place, a fair amount of traffic should be removed
from the major interconnects.
        --asp () partan com (Andrew Partan)