[12137] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
NT and Magellan
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Gordon Cook)
Sat May 7 03:57:28 1994
From: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Date: Sat, 7 May 1994 04:53:23 GMT
To: com-priv@psi.com
Of course it is all a big coincidence that MCI's test bed is seeded
with Magellan in July ....NT announces Magellan in August, and by the end
of September NT has paid the $5 million admission price to the Board of
Directors of ANS which wound up as a subcontractor instead of full partner
toMCI for the vBNS.
But Magellan wasn't exactly a new switch. Like MCI NT didn't think much of
ATM in 1991-92 and abandoned plans for an ATM switch. Suddenly in 1992-1993
ATM began to look hot..... NT looked arround and made arrangements to market
Spanet an ATM switch made by GTE. Spanet became Magellan.
Once more..... the infobahn as an excercise in technology catch-up.
I'd sure like to know the six nodes in the MCI test net. (One of my
other sources who read the review panel findings on the solicitation
responses said the panel was real impressed by MCI's proposal for a test
net. Didn't say MCI already HAD one.) I note Brock said that the test
net involved visualizations and medical imaging. Sounds a little
supercomputerish to me. Wonder what supercomputer center housed one of
the test nodes?
