But several other backbone providers have caused customer disruptions in the wake of bankruptcy.

These backbone providers sell their services to Internet service providers (ISPs).

Those so-called backbone providers adhere to what are known as peering arrangements, which are essentially agreements to exchange traffic at no charge.

And for now, capacity is not a particularly pressing problem because the backbone providers have been laying high-speed lines at prodigious rates over the last few years.

In the early days of the Internet, self-interest forced backbone providers into peering.

Mr. Nakahata now represents one of the smaller backbone providers living in the shadow of the proposed Worldcom-Sprint merger.

The backbone providers, the backbone cabal, were instrumental in this reorganization of Usenet since they had great influence with respect to supporting a new newsgroup.

For such a reason, network service providers are sometimes referred to as backbone providers or internet providers.

They're sitting with peering relationships with all of the main backbone providers.

Peer 1 is a Canadian backbone provider where we've been since the beginning of 2003.