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ResidentJaxAss

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No, but can you tell me what a network access point is?

NAPs are major intersections of the Internet, where the networks of local and regional access providers meet and pass transmissions from one network to another.

I searched around and found this article from December.

EXCLUSIVE REPORTS

From the December 26, 2003 print edition

Internet node project costs rise

Paul Ivice

Correspondent

NORTHEAST FLORIDA -- A year ago, Park Beeler, CEO of Trinity Partners Inc., thought construction of a $120 million building that would house an Internet network access point (NAP) would be well under way by now.

But continuing security concerns since the 9/11 terrorist attacks have casued a redesign of the building, which will be the key element in the Jacksonville International Technology Center, a 550-acre site west of Interstate 95 and southeast of Pecan Park Road.

The building will be a destination point for a fiber optic cable that connects in the Atlantic Ocean to a cable hooking up New York and England. The presence of the NAP in Jacksonville could transform the region's lagging technology sector.

The two-story building is now planned to be 220,000 square feet, up from the 160,000 square feet in last year's plan. The building's estimated cost also has grown, from $120 million to $154 million as part of a project that may now cost more than $450 million, including the NAP structure, security systems, and switching and receiving equipment.

"Our timetable is now targeted to complete the building in the first quarter of 2005," Beeler said. It is no coincidence that timetable coincides with Super Bowl XXXIX, when Jacksonville will have the attention of corporate executives from around the nation.

The entire SMART (Secure Management of Access and Routing of Telecommunications) complex will consist of five buildings in a telecom complex covering about 100 acres.

Although security concerns preclude an official groundbreaking ceremony for the building, Beeler said infrastructure work at the site has been proceeding for some time.

The central building will house the NAP. It's being designed with fortress-like security, including such advanced technology as HEMP (high-energy magnetic pulse) protection; strict environmental controls, and a triple-redundancy power supply required to operate and protect the group of high-powered servers, which connect it to six systems via a fiber optic cable.

The high-powered direct link allows high-speed, high-bandwidth data transmissions to the global telecom network. That's the network on which the Internet and all electronic data run. Think of the existing telecom grid as a congested system of interstate highways and the Jacksonville NAP as the hub to an alternate highway to alleviate traffic.

The six existing U.S. NAPs do not connect directly to each other. The Jacksonville NAP would be the first to seamlessly connect with the other NAPs.

"What we've done is come up with a totally new land plan that is security focused," Beeler said. "It was not so much a flaw in the old plan, but our thinking had been to do what everyone else had done in the telecommunications game prior to 9/11 and the game has changed."

He expects the combination of security and connectivity will attract a cluster of data centers and disaster recovery centers in the compound.

To create the security plan, Trinity Partners retained the government services division of ADT Security Services Inc. "We said, 'Design us a state-of-the-art system' and they did," Beeler said, adding that designing and implementing the security plan will cost "in the range of $10 million to $20 million."

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