Re: mae-la

[Matthew Petach <mpetach () netflight com>]

> Hello,
>
> I'm curious about MAE-LA. It has the potential to be quiet big, but it
> never really kicked off. We were considering linking there, but with only
> 13 other providers, we decided not too.
>
> Does anyone know why MAE-LA never really kicked off?

Define "Really Kicked Off" for me, if you would...

According to 
http://www.mfsdatanet.com/MAE/la.fddi.overlay.html

right now, MAE-LA is handling as much traffic as
MAE-WEST did in November of 1995, about 20 months
ago...see the following graph for historical data:

http://www.mfsdatanet.com/MAE/west.mfs.951106.html

If MAE-LA keeps up that growth rate, in two years
it should be handling roughly 1Gb/sec through
it during the day.  I think you'd agree that at
that point it would definitely have "kicked off"...

It's all a question of scale.  MAE-LA is doing quite
nicely right now--I wouldn't recommend it as your
_only_ connection to the net, unless you're using
it to purchase transit connectivity out through one
of the carriers there.  But as a place to pass traffic
to other players, it's quiet and reliable; once you
connect and set up your peering, it's never gone down
on us, we never have to think about it, unlike mae-west
it doesn't cause early morning heartburn because
someone tripped over an extension cord... :-(

Bill raised some excellent concerns, however, about
the overall wisdom of using the WorldCom supported
MAEs in general.  I know that if I were starting
a company up at this point, I wouldn't recommend
trying to hit all the MAEs, I'd do private connections
to the major carriers, and screw trying to go 
default-free or anything silly like that--it takes too
much time, too much effort, and your customers won't
really be able to tell the difference anyhow.

But then again, I'm just getting cynical at this hour.  :-(

Short answer to your original question, mae-la is doing
perfectly well for what it is.
 
> Keith

Matt Petach

speaking from home, not representing anyone that anyone
here might recognize...