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Cook: Internet2-NLR Merger Critical

The proposed merger between Internet2 and National LambdaRail is crtical, Gordon Cook argues.

The proposed merger between the two major next-generation Internet projects, Internet2 and National LambdaRail (NLR), was welcomed by most telecom industry analysts and blogs, including GigaOm. Veteran telecom infrastructure analyst Gordon Cook has tracked the development of these two projects for some time, and says the details of any merger will be critical to the future of broadband Internet. In a blog post earlier this week, Gordon argues that the stakes are extremely high:

My sources are expressing optimism say that they think the economic and technology arguments are so strongly in favor of the NLR approach that the new organization will look in its operation like NLR. I hope they are right. A free and independent IP fiber based infrastructure over which competing providers may sell services is the most critical economic infrastructure of this new century. This is not yet widely understood. In my opinion such understanding is one of the most critical public policy goals for this country. ... These are critically important events and bear close watching.

Gordon is relatively new to the blogosphere, having launched his Collaborative Edge blog last year, but for many years has authored a telecom research publication, the COOK Report on Internet Protocol, Technology Economics and Policy.