Cleve Nichols from MCI: When will the ATM architecture be available?
Steve Feldman: We expect to start doing this now for beta at MAE-WEST. The old architecture customers will not be able to directly peer with the ATM connected customers. [We hope to offer the commercial product at the end of this quarter.]
Bill Norton askes if the participants feel that they can't get things done fast enough to deal with the growth?
What is being done to make the MAE less fragile?
Steve Feldman: We are trying to understand why it is so fragile. We are working with our vendor to fix this. We also have high hopes that the ATM will help off-load the old Gigaswitches.
Will both MAE-EAST and MAE-WEST have ATM?
Steve Feldman: Yes, it will be up to the customers to decide which set of services they want to use.
Do you find that having getting DS-3 types of connections from the Telcos is a problem?
All of the ISPs say that it is a problem. We do adapt to planning for these installs. Some of us are in places where DS-3 are available for sell.
Curtis Stallings at Verio: Will there be any exchange points in the middle of the country (like Kansas City)?
Steve Feldman: Tell your WorldCom Rep.
Steven Ellis: Now that we are part of SBC, we can probably do something there, but folks need to tell SBC that this is a good idea.
Jay Adelson: PAIX would be interested in doing that if there is demand.
Steven Ellis: We should not get in a mode of building an exchange point and waiting for customers. It will need to be some kind of active feedback process.
Brian Reynolds: How much non IP traffic do you expect at the ATM exchange points?
Steve Feldman: None
Steven Ellis: None. We do that on another network.
Jay Aldelson: There may be happening at the private interconnects now. We don't really know.
Do the regional exchanges have any impact on reducing the traffic at the major NAPs?
Steve Feldman: We don't have any data on this, but we expect it will really benefit.
Someone claiming to be from a company that has sister fiber companies says that the fiber providers often have to completely reprovision their network (new equipment and such) to meet DS-3 and greater needs.
Sean Donelan representing the St. Louis Internet Exchange: Where is packet loss happening?
Steve Feldman: Head of line blocking is the biggest source at the MAEs
Steven Ellis: There is cell-loss at the PAC-BELL NAP, but it really comes about from saturated customer connections.
Sean Donelan: Would it help to make public port statistics publicly available?
Steven Ellis: We don't believe that is a good idea.
Steve Feldman: We agree.
Randy Bush: We believe that there are operational problems at the Exchanges themselves. We also think that the customer connections are too small.
Someone else says that telcos should order more equipment in advance so they can respond to customer needs faster.
John Curran notes that there is an effort to create some standard templates between carrier groups and ISPs to facilitate forecasting.