[ih] Where it All Started: Panel Discussion on the Birth of the European Internet [RIPE NCC - South East Europe 12 Meeting in Athens, Greece]

[Jaap Akkerhuis]

 John Gilmore writes:

 > Thank you for your corrections about the timing of the seismo!mcvax
 > link.

Also note that mcvax was not in Norway but the Netherlands.

 > Jaap Akkerhuis via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
 > >                                     When the bandwidth via dial-up
 > > and X.25 lines couldn't handle the traffic anymore we decided to
 > > have a fixed line in and seismo was willing to host the US part of
 > > that.  ...
 > > 
 > > So, no, there was no an expensive undersea leased line between
 > > seismo and mcvax.

 > What was the "fixed line"?  In the US that is normally called a "leased
 > line".  Did it not run on an undersea cable?

Same difference, I don't want to quibble over US terminology.

One just went to the local phone company (in this case the state
owned monopoly) and asked for a (fixed,leased,private) line between
point A and B. One gets an offer and can accept it or not.  Given
that there was zero budget for this we kept out fingers crossed
that we would break even so management wouldn't protest.

	jaap