North American Network Operators Group
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Re: CAIS DSL failure: lessons in how not to inform

  • From: Howard C. Berkowitz
  • Date: Wed Jan 24 18:34:28 2001 


[email protected]  wrote,







Afraid that you've missed an important point in your review of their service.
When you signed up for dsl service, you had a choice of dsl service or "Cais
dedicated" for mission critical applications.




As a matter of fact, I have their business service. There is a
significant price difference between SDSL and ADSL, at least with
this provider. This is a SOHO router service, not single host.



But I'm really trying to make a general operational point.




 The dedicated nature of dsl

connections is an artefact of the technology and not something that
the isp can

afford to provide at the prices charged. You're paying the rough
equivalent of

dialup service and can't expect to get the service provided to dedicated

customers (T1, etc) who pay much more. You made the choice when you signed

up. Providing you with the information you want will detract from resources

available to solve the problem quickly.



I'm quite aware of labor rates, and I'm not expecting personal
notification. Changing a voice message every 4 hours or so, and/or
sending email, is hardly what I call labor-intensive.



Try the customer service lines at dial providers such as
Mindspring/Earthlink. Status reports there on POP problems, as well
as on support web pages.






You're benefiting from the technology
by getting more data for your buck.  You can't realistically expect anything
which is remotely labor intensive to be provided.  Or have your labor rates
declined dramatically recently?







Mine haven't






The response I'm seeing is poor for a $19.95 per month dial provider,
or a telco, or a discount airline. 24+ hour outages are hardly
something I'd call minor.