Re: What other IXP Benefit?

[Randy Bush <randy at psg.com>]

> I have followed the 'IXP Hardware' forum and learnt alot.
> However, i would like to know, apart from the benefit of 'keeping
> local traffic local' what other benefits does my company - a
> service provider, or any private company stand to gain by
> participating in an exchange point? Secondly, what is the
> difference between an exchange point and a network access point
> (NAP).

your benefit from being at an exchange point is that you do not pay
for traffic to your neighbor to go through expensive africa-us (or
wherever your transit connectivity goes) links twice for every
packet.  *big* cost savings.  improves latency considerably too,
which your customers will notice.

NAP is a contract term from the NSF contracts at the transition
from the NSFnet to the commercial world.  there are four NAPs,
SprintNAP in Pennsauken NJ, AADS in Chicago, PacBellNAP in SF, and
(memory wavers) MAE-East nead DC.

of course, marketeers, thinking there is cachet in the term 'NAP'
will call anything a NAP, including sale of commercial transit,
e.g. InterNAP.  in general misuse of the term is a sign of slime
and/or lack of net.clue.

randy

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