Meet Internap, A Virtual B2B ISP

Not really a backbone provider and uninterested in delivering residential services, Internap has created a commercial niche of its own. It's a virtual business-to-business Internet service provider that happens to provide access to ISP businesses, too.

by Patricia Fusco ISP-Planet Managing Editor [March 28, 2002]

Seattle-based Internap Network Services Corp. is an Internet service provider that defies the very definition of being an ISP. On the surface, Internap provides businesses with fast, enterprise-class, centrally managed Internet connectivity services. These are data carrier-like services that would allow us to classify Internap as a carrier-class ISP.

But Internap doesn't own an inch of fiber, which makes its business model appear to be more like a virtual ISP—only Internap doesn't re-brand other data carriers' services and offer those services under its own name. Instead, Internap takes enterprise-class connectivity services and makes them better. The company provides these Internet services to clients like Amazon.com, Nasdaq, and Travelocity, as well as ISPs like SpeakEasy and EarthLink.

Internap built a better mousetrap when it developed a smart-routing policy that makes its Internet connectivity services perform like a carrier-class network, only better.

Optimized business model
Like many other ISPs and large enterprises, Internap gets its Internet access from backbone providers like UUNET and Sprint, among others. However, Internap buys and then resells transit over the ten largest IP backbones in the world. This is not just re-branded IP connectivity, Internap optimizes customers' traffic over these networks though its intelligent routing technology.

Internap optimizes these major network connections by aggregating and analyzing the possible paths that packets could take while in transit. By using active measurements from ping tests and other quantitative network data, Internap builds a three-dimensional map of the Internet.

Since Internap knows which backbone provider's data transfer speeds are lightening-quick from Chicago to Atlanta, but sluggish from Chicago to San Francisco, the company is capable of building its router policy to beat network bottlenecks, ultimately optimizing packet trails over the speediest parts of the Internet.

According to Bill Hankes of Internap, this is what allows the company to rival major carriers' network services, without owning a big pipe.

"We get SLAs [service level agreements] from the carriers from which we purchase transit, but Internap offers its own SLA to customers that in many cases beats the terms of the SLAs we receive," Hankes said.

Internap's SLA offers proactive credits to customers' bills for failure to meet latency metrics of 55 ms domestic round-trip, packet loss of less than one percent, and 100 percent network availability—across all of the backbones to which it connects.

Internap's SLA also provides guarantees for problem resolution response times. It was one of the first to offer an SLA that covers multiple providers, and since Internap covers all of the backbones to which it connects, it just might be one of the strongest SLAs in the industry.

Hankes explains how Internap's unique view of the Internet's infrastructure makes for a fat and happy backbone service offering.

"Internap, as one of the largest backbone customers, can negotiate favorable carrier costs and pass along that savings in a bundled service that includes optimized routing across the largest backbones," Hankes explained. "Because we centralize costs associated with equipment and BGP expertise at our 35 network access points, we can offer prices that are competitive with a single Tier-1 backbone provider."

Service-level realities
Broadband service provider, Speakeasy Inc. is one of Internap's largest ISP clients. Founded in 1994, the Seattle-based broadband service provider specializes in delivering digital subscriber line (DSL) services

Mike Apgar, Speakeasy chief executive officer, said the company signed on with Internap as quickly as they could and has never been given cause to rethink the decision.

"We were in the process of opening up a 5,500-square foot Internet café with high-speed access, an art gallery and a small theater," Apgar explained. "Internap was genuinely interested in our project and shared our vision."

Apgar added that during the past five years Internap has repeatedly beat his expectations in terms of network efficiency and customer service.

"Internap has achieved 100 percent uptime since we signed up, this is unheard of in this industry. It helps that their routing strategy is superior, but it's their continued emphasis on provider superior customer service that keeps us with them," he added. "Time and time again Internap's shown us that they know how to keep their customers happy. We pay a little more for their service, but that's our philosophy, too. We charge a little more but our customers get quality connectivity and customer services."

—End