North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Choosing ISP for T1 connectivity -2

  • From: Adam Rothschild
  • Date: Sat Jul 28 00:25:30 2001

On Fri, Jul 27, 2001 at 05:15:41PM -0400, Alexander Avtsin wrote:
> From the test one can see that first 14-20 positions are very
> similar in performance, so what's important for us is virtually no
> downtime (not in SLA, but in reality) and quick tech support
> response to troubleshoot the problem

Is your goal to be singly homed to one massively reliable IP/telecom
provider pair (putting concerns of single points of failure in
abeyance), or simply to find someone who's better than most, to
augment your current transit arrangements?

[ If the former, <http://www.mhsc.com/recovery.htm> chronicled one
  man's attempts at such, but sadly, it appears as though his
  mission-critical web server and/or "business-grade" DSL is down
  again. ]

> (ICG doesn't have tech in their POP in Newark...)

When you've got hundreds of access POPs nationwide, each with a few
Cisco routers and Lucent/Livingston Portmasters and miscellaneous ATM
kit, staffing each and every one of them with a warm body 24x7x365 is
not terribly cost-efficient.  I'd be more interested in their
OOB/management architecture, remote hands contracts, time-to-recovery
statistics, etc -- the kinda information that isn't made readily
available to current and potential customers.

Also bear in mind that, like in many major urban locations nationwide,
common sense and employee safety in Newark is a major concern.  Though
I think they're a bit nutty and overprotective for doing so, some
large carriers with presence at 744 Broad and 165 Halsey (last I
checked, these were the two locations where ICG/Netcom had POPs,
though I'm not sure what the status of their Halsey install is)
require that their nighttime technicians roll strapped.  This obviously
introduces additional concerns and complexity...

> Now aside from the test, would YOU recommend one provider or another
> based on your OWN experience?

Yes, but not here.  There are forums for such discussion (again, the
isp-colo and isp-bandwidth lists come to mind), and this is not one of
them.  Feel free to drop me a line off-list for some unbiased opinions
regarding which providers the NYC metro area to use, and which to
avoid.

> I don't think any public resource exists which compares reliability
> of backbones, including last mile link - how stable are the routers
> that handle your particular T1

Probably not; too much granularity for meaningful test metrics today.

-adam