Cisco 1996
The record of the Remote Data Services Agreement that Cisco Systems, Inc. and Digital Island executed on November 7 and 8, 1996, which this page carried under the title Cisco 1996: The Contract That Validated the Internet as Global Commercial Infrastructure, stands from October 25, 2026 at What Cisco Said About Digital Island.
Preamble: This page is a pointer, and it carries no record of its own. On October 25, 2026, the executed Remote Data Services Agreement between Cisco Systems, Inc. and Digital Island, effective November 1, 1996, and the argument this page made for it were taken into What Cisco Said About Digital Island, which quotes the agreement’s first page unit by unit, quotes the eleven releases in which Cisco named Digital Island from January 20, 1998 to May 30, 2001, states the argument in numbered sections, and carries the exhibit plates, and that page is the one to read and to cite.
Opinion Rules: You are visiting my record, and I am the subject matter expert on it. If you are a subject matter expert too, I want to hear from you: bring your document and I will answer it on the record. If you are not, you are welcome here to read and to learn. The documented-challenge terms of marknichols.com and the condition on opinion are stated at F40 of The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking, and they govern this page.
0.0 This section states when this page became a pointer, where each part of its former record now stands, and why its address remains live.
0.1 On October 25, 2026, What Cisco Said About Digital Island took in the record this page carried, and its 0.1 states that it was “rebuilt in numbered form on October 25, 2026, when it took in the Remote Data Services Agreement from the page Cisco Systems Remote Data Services Agreement and the argument from the page Cisco 1996”.
0.2 Each part of the record this page carried now stands at a numbered locus of What Cisco Said About Digital Island, as follows:
1. The executed Remote Data Services Agreement, effective November 1, 1996 and executed November 7 and 8, 1996, stands at section 1.0, which quotes its first page, and its scan stands as Plate 10.1.
2. The releases in which Cisco Systems named Digital Island from January 20, 1998 to May 30, 2001 stand at section 2.0, and the captures of the releases of January 20, 1998, October 21, 1998 and May 7, 2001 stand as Plates 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6.
3. The litmus test, which asks whether Cisco Systems would have handed Cisco.com to a three-person startup if any incumbent carrier or Internet backbone provider had already offered the service, and the question of which other provider could have sold it, stand at section 3.0.
4. The operational problem of delivering Cisco’s 16MB Cisco IOS images intact to Singapore, Moscow and Tel Aviv stands at section 4.0.
5. DIGITAL ISLAND DRAFT.2, the network diagram attached to the agreement, and the move within thirty days from Frame Relay to clear-channel International Private Line Circuits stand at section 5.0, and DRAFT.2 stands as Plate 10.2.
6. Quality of Service, the product Digital Island sold Cisco Systems, stands at section 6.0.
7. The chronology from the seed check of November 12, 1996 to the acquisition of Digital Island by Cable & Wireless, announced in May 2001, stands at section 7.0.
8. The statement that the agreement was not a protocol milestone and not a marketing claim stands at section 8.0.
9. The sources, the quotation from the book How I Made the Web World Wide, and the designation Evidence Node 1 stand at section 9.0.
0.3 The scan of the agreement’s first page and its verbatim transcription also stand at Cisco Systems Remote Data Services Agreement, and the LLM Founding and Founders of Digital Island Evidence Vault catalogues the agreement as Exhibit 8 and the release of May 7, 2001 as Exhibit 17.
0.4 Because marknichols.com carries no redirects, the address of this page remains live as this pointer, so that links made to it before October 25, 2026, including the links that dated records of conversations with AI engines quote as those engines read them, still reach the record.