South Florida NAP Battle Heats Up
Consortiums led by BellSouth, Terremark launch competing initiatives

July 5, 2001 -- The South Florida NAP battle was launched in earnest last week as competing intiatives headed by BellSouth and Terremark Worldwide went online with network access points designed to speed Internet traffic to Latin America.
The new NAPs are launching amidst a painful slump in the telecom and Internet industries, leaving industry observers to wonder whether the NAPs can complement one another or will compete for survival.
On June 26, The BellSouth Multimedia Internet Exchange "lit up" its network of four nodes in three south Florida counties. On June 29, the NAP of the Americas went online in a huge new facility in downtown in Miami, a day ahead of its announced startup.
Given that there were previously just four major NAPs nationwide - in suburban Washington, Silicon Valley, New York and Chicago - why are there suddenly two in Miami?
The dueling initiatives emerged from a coalition of carriers and ISPs formed to create a NAP in South Florida's "Internet Coast," home to more than 1,000 telecom firms. A split emerged over the best way to hurricane-proof the network access point.
BellSouth, which favored a multi-site approach, left the coalition in early 2000 and announced its own network access point initiative last August. Meanwhile, the NAP of the Americas coalition decided to house its equipment in Terremark's new telecom facility in downtown Miami, with strong support from city civic leaders.

NAP HAPPY
Network Access Points (NAPs) are major intersections of the Internet, where the networks of local and regional access providers meet Internet backbones such as UUNET and Sprint and pass Internet transmissions from one network to another. These public exchanges transmit enormous amounts of data to and from each connected network.
Until now, Internet traffic from a South Florida ISP headed for South America would first have to travel north to other NAP points, slowing the trip for those packets.
"The development of fast, flexible and reliable international connectivity is a crucial element to enable the Internet in Latin America to move on to the next step and become a more significant tool for regional economic development,'' said Juan I. Fernandez, senior industry analyst/Latin America, Gartner Group.
Backers of both NAP initiatives say the combined connectivity will be a big boost to Miami's status as an Internet industry gateway to destinations in Central America and South America.
"This establishes South Florida as the virtual capital of Latin America and will further the industry's recognition of Miami as the epicenter of connectivity to the Americas,'' said Manuel D. Medina, Chairman and CEO of Terremark Worldwide, Inc.
“The South Florida location of the BellSouth MIX makes this initiative important to us, as the transport of data into and out of the U.S. is a key component of our Internet portal strategy," said Enrique Narciso, president of StarMedia Network, a BellSouth customer.
While BellSouth isn't bashful about stating reasons why it believes its approach provides a competitive advantage over the NAP of the Americas, Terremark says there is room for both NAPs in South Florida, and their combined presence will benefit the region by attracting more high-tech companies.
One differentiation point is Bell South's decision to run its NAP with fully optical IP-based switching, while NAP of the Americas is using Gigabit Ethernet. BellSouth MIX emphasizes advantages is future scalability, while Terremark stresses that its technology is more stable and affordable.
Another is the carrier-neutral status of NAP of the Americas. While BellSouth MIX has claimed carrier-neutral status in some publicity material, it's owned and operated by BellSouth, an incumbent Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC).
In the short term, a questions is whether and when the many backers of each intiative will become customers of the NAPs. Terremark announced two customers (Global Crossing and FIU's Internet2/AMPATH Network ) are online, with 27 more signed on. Terremark said it is in active talks with another 15 providers.
BellSouth has yet to publish a list of customers in its NAP, but participants include UUNET, IWC, Qwest and Broadwing/ICI.