<a second-tier one at that - BBN Planet>
Don't know much about S&P Comstock, but I do know that BBN, formerly Bolt Beranek and Newman (and recently 96% purchased by GTE), were one of the primary founders of the internet along with Darpa:
bbn.com
Network Infrastructure
Company Background
Network Architecture
BBN supports its BBN Planet service offerings with a high bandwidth network infrastructure, two network operations centers ("NOCs"), two web hosting and server operations centers, and a 7-days-per-week, 24-hours-per-day technical support organization. BBN's current network infrastructure includes Cisco 7500-series routers and high-speed T-3 circuits. BBN's network architecture permits the Company to maximize the number of local Internet access points by utilizing both dedicated points of presence ("POPs") and interconnected frame relay access facilities provided by local exchange and interexchange carriers. The Company currently has agreements with major telecommunications providers to use their frame relay access points to augment BBN's
network backbone and local access POP network capabilities.
BBN has recently completed a major upgrade and expansion of its network backbone to accommodate growing customer demand. This new network infrastructure is designed to include backbone and metropolitan T-3 POPs, other high-speed POPs, redundant T-3 circuits, and interconnections at major peering points. All metropolitan POPs will be connected to the backbone nodes via T-3 circuits, or via multiple T-1 circuits which support dynamic routing of traffic even if circuit failures are experienced. The new network provides higher bandwidth, increased throughput and reliability, and greater capacity than BBN's existing network. BBN continues to expand the number of POPs with T-3 capacity.
BBN is focusing on providing dedicated Internet access to major business centers in the United States. Through an agreement with EQUANT (an affiliate of SITA, a worldwide airline industry network provider), BBN also offers Internet access in a select number of
countries utilizing EQUANT's frame relay network. BBN is working with EQUANT to expand BBN's international dedicated Internet access capabilities to certain additional countries currently covered by EQUANT's existing global managed telecommunications network.
Operations and Customer Support
BBN maintains a high level of network reliability and service by continuously monitoring, on a 7-days-per-week, 24-hours-per-day basis, both data communications traffic across its network and the integrity of services to the customer. BBN has committed substantial resources to network operations and support. BBN maintains NOCs at its headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in Columbia, Maryland, and operates web hosting and server operations centers in Palo Alto, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts. BBN believes its end-to-end monitoring, round-the-clock availability, and operations redundancy combine to provide targeted business customers with the level of assurance they will require to use the Internet for their electronic commerce activities.
Under contract to DARPA, BBN is building an ultra high-speed Internet Protocol (IP) router that will transmit breakthrough levels of traffic among wide-area (WAN) and local area (LAN) networks. The MultiGigabit Router (MGR) will be 25 times faster than current commercial products, providing the speed and bandwidth for high-capacity backbones,
sophisticated data-intensive applications, and supercomputing.
Steve |
