What is this project about? NAP? And what purpose does it serve? Where else are there physical NAPS? And are they successful? What benefit is there in buiding this NAP site? I thought Network Access Protection was a service from Microsoft.

it is like a brain computer installed there for the storage of information for all of you little islands in caribbean plus some other country that do not have the capacity to storage their day to day data base.

So if it is a computer, why was the investment that huge? Why is a whole new building needed etc? Is this investment justified? What benefit will it bring about?

NAP is a traffic exchange point. There are 4 in the United States and built by major providers. Providers meaning AT & T, MCI, etc during the late 80's and 90's. Since then many additional NAP's have been built and also called Internet exchanges, where traffic could be exchanged among backbones. A NAP in the Caribbean puts Dominican Republic in the spot light as technologically advanced in the IP infrastructure very important to Internet Traffic and the availability of telecommunications services to corporations and businesses in the island.

Why is a NAP so expensive? Well there are several key factors. Among them Real Estate as millions of dollars worth of equipment is needed to operate a NAP infrastructure and a key element of a building housing a NAP is to protect the equipment. NAP is not merely an expense as the result of a fully operational NAP is precisely to create a recurring long term infrastructure access fees. Meaning mayor carriers would want access and will pay for it.

Too much information. I need to take a "nap".

GC that is the funniest thing I have ever seen you post and it is true but riversanchez explained perfectly and to a tee. He must be a Telecom guy like me.

Now In need a nap so I can go toe to toe with Belial

That "communist" character is getting the beating of his life right now .. never seen so many gang up on so few since General Custer went toe-to-toe against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne at the Little Big Horn ..

That was funny GC. You meant the DR afterlunch NAP!!! jaja!

So Jander is in Telecom... Interesting.

I just would like to know how long will it take TERREMARK which is the developer... To make it happen not only for the local Telecommunications companies to offer infrastructure to local market but so business and industry actually make use of this huge investment that must of come; with great tax breaks and land price preferences. TERREMARK is the developer of the NAP in downtown MIAMI, Florida. I am not sure how much will the Dominican Republic enjoy of this new NAP, but TERREMARK will for sure have great financial and immediate dollar gain!!!

Before the NAP project was done, Dom. Rep. had a limited Pipe to the MIAMI NAP and was like a village with a limited or a non existing supply of water. Now with NAP, the main water faucet has been placed in the Village, now to get this water across the village is another story! Now we hit the reality of doing business in Dom. Rep. Who will we have to pay to get additional water pipes to the village homes! So the ultimate goal has not started yet!!! The 50 Million is nothing compared to the money that needs to be spend to lay Fiber Optic LOOPS in many many areas of the country to actually make use from this NAP investment in the Dom. Rep. for Dominicans to the descent capacity it can offer. In fact today, the NAP in the Dom . Rep. is basically providing a form of charity or favor by letting TERREMARK have a place to connect the rest of the Islands TERREMARK is targeting to connect. The real admiration and smarts has to be given to TERREMARK by pulling this off!!!

TRACERT to dominicantoday.com indicates a first link to UUNet in Herndon, VA ..64.117.56.29 .. instead of MIAMI which is 8 hops down .. why is that?

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6001]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\>TRACERT dominicantoday.com

Tracing route to dominicantoday.com [209.200.107.167]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 23 ms 25 ms 24 ms
4 29 ms 23 ms 26 ms
5 49 ms 48 ms 50 ms 64.117.56.29
6 54 ms 50 ms 51 ms 0.so-6-1-0.XR1.SJU2.ALTER.NET [64.116.16.218]
7 54 ms 49 ms 52 ms 0.so-6-0-0.TL1.SJU2.ALTER.NET [64.116.16.26]
8 56 ms 50 ms 49 ms 0.t3-4-1-1.IL1.MIA6.ALTER.NET [64.116.40.162]
9 53 ms 55 ms 52 ms POS2-0.IH3.MIA4.ALTER.NET

That one is easy. The domain name servers for Dominican Today are :
NS3.WEBCONTROLCENTER.COM
NS4.WEBCONTROLCENTER.COM

The company that host Dominican Today websites is:
WebControlCenter in New York. For obvious reasons is going to HOP via the NAP in Virginia which is probably one of the most important in the East of the USA. Now, your hops generated via your tracert are routed via TERREMARK in MIAMI NAP which is the same TERREMARK in Dominican Republic in the process of beginning operations any time.

The announcement about the NAP in DR is more of a Public Relations approach and the beginning of a free publicity to attract peering companies for the sake of TERREMARK. Something like the new highway from Sto. Domingo to Samana. It was inagurated when no one could drive in it except construction trucks or 4x4 SUV's. P-o-l-i-t-i-c-s!!!

Just because there is a NAP, does not mean that your HOPS will jump from DR to any domain directly. Hops will add on as more NAPS are switch

TRACERT hops end up at 209.200.107.167 .. CrystalTech Web Hosting Inc., 6135 N. 7th St, Phoenix, AZ 85014 .. a WHOIS on WEBCONTROLCENTER.COM resolves to 216.119.106.152 .. which is also registered to CrystalTech Web Hosting Inc in Phoenix .. so you are right .. does the NAP help with "caching"? every one of my TRACERTs returns a "Request timed out" on hop #2 .. an obvious break in the link to the dominicantoday servers .. so something from somewhere must rush in to "fill in the blank".. right?..
.
.
10 115 ms 100 ms 100 ms atl-core-02.inet.qwest.net [205.171.21.45]
11 119 ms 118 ms 121 ms phn-core-01.inet.qwest.net [67.14.19.38]
12 129 ms 125 ms 122 ms scd-edge-01.inet.qwest.net [205.171.12.42]
13 121 ms 122 ms 122 ms 63.148.218.166
14 119 ms 124 ms 120 ms 216.119.120.8
15 125 ms 131 ms 125 ms 216.119.120.33
16 128 ms 130 ms 130 ms 209.200.107.167

The DR must improve many things in order to better developing of IT. A ".com.do" Dominican domain cost around $65 dollars while other domain names like.com, .org. .net, etc only cost $8 dollars. Also the amount of registrant is too limited. We need competition and private investments.