Thanks, Mark... the footprints show it all. Or do they?
An uninformed viewer might assume that these dots on the map are contiguously connected by some form of ESPI or ALGX, respectively, backbone means. Instead, I note that while much of this is true in the areas of each of their heaviest concentrations, there are also many cases where remote city implementations are merely local LEC functions to the locations shown, and aren't necessarily supported by each of these CLEC's, by their own fiber backbones.
Rather, as they rollout out new remote city locations they are independently operated, only connected by "leased" T1s and T3s from others, or none at all. In the latter case, they are renting inter-machine trunking from the other IXCs and attaching to an SS7 cloud like any startup CLEC would do. At least that is my take. Would you either confirm this, or correct me if I am mistaken?
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
