Internap Network Services

The Company began selling Internet connectivity services from its first Private Network Access Point (P-NAP) facility, located in Seattle, in October 1996. Internap has deployed P-NAP facilities in numerous other key markets throughout the world, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Jose and London.

Major e-commerce companies and networks served by Internap include Datek Online, Infospace, ITXC, Earthlink, The NASDAQ, and many others -- including many local and regional ISPs. Our customers are primarily businesses that desire high-performance Internet connectivity services in order to run mission-critical Internet-based applications. We believe customers will continue to demand the highest quality of service as their Internet connectivity needs grow and become more complex.

The Need for Internap

At its inception, the Internet was a single network used by the Defense Department and government-funded researchers. As the Internet was commercialized, telecommunications companies met the demand by building extensive Internet Protocol (IP) networks, often referred to as "backbones." However, unlike the one original network, the many commercial networks needed a way to exchange traffic. A system of free exchange (peering) was created with a small handful of Metropolitan Area Exchanges (MAEs), the largest of which are located in Washington, D.C., and San Jose. As a result, what exists today is a global network made up of many networks with data often traveling a circuitous route to its destination. Because of the heavy loads of traffic funneled into these exchanges, peering points are often congested. Data packets detained too long between networks on which they travel can be "dropped," causing the original transmitting computer to resend information, increasing the amount of time required to deliver the information to its destination. The ramifications are measurable and real: It takes only 1% data loss to double download time.

Internap's Approach to Evolving the Internet

Internap is a business-to-business company focused on evolving the Internet from a somewhat chaotic, best-efforts network to a quality-based platform for commerce, communications, education and entertainment. This means that Internap is helping the various parts of the Internet work together better. Our Overlay Network, controlled by its patented route management technology, adds a welcome element of predictability to what has become an increasingly unpredictable and limited global infrastructure. Internap provides high speed, intelligent management of data and the efficient use of existing Internet backbones by localizing and routing traffic to and from destinations within a given network. Plus, with our business model, the entire Internet community wins. We have introduced economic settlement to what was previously a free process. For the first time, the major backbones are getting paid and Internap customers benefit from Internap’s service level agreements with the respective backbones.

Internap's Technology Benefits

Growing demand will ultimately cause the Internet to slow to snail’s pace if upgrades to the basic Internet architecture aren’t made. As recognized in a recent FCC paper, congestion will increase due to video streaming, telephony, e-commerce and corporate network migration, as well as other deployments of as-yet-unimagined technologies. Our business model addresses this pending crisis by providing

• Unique network infrastructure with built-in redundancy and performance guarantees: Internap secures direct access to all major networks, representing approximately 90% of all Internet users, thus bypassing peering point congestion. In addition, our built-in network redundancies give data multiple options for transmission should one connection point fail.
• Intelligent routing technology: Internap’s routing technology, ASsimilator, tells routers the best way to transmit data by monitoring Internet network changes, backbone connections and service points to make appropriate adjustments.
• Dedicated and proactive service support: Our customers are our priority. Our Network Operations Center works diligently to monitor and resolve any issues related to customer needs.

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