Re: FYI ONLY >> Non-Operational (at least directly)

[I Am Not An Isp <patrick () ianai net>]

At 07:35 PM 4/13/99 -0400, David O'Leary wrote:

> Sometime in 1991 or so, when we were moving the SURAnet backbone from
> university campuses (campii?) to collocation space in MCI POPs throughout
> the southeast, I was talking to one of the MCI techs about the physically
> diverse T1s that MCI was contracted to deliver.  He said if the same
> person engineered the routing for the circuits at the same time (which 
> would only be done if it was specified on each order), then we might
> get lucky.  Even if diversity is engineered in at first, shuffling
> circuits on cross connects and such would decrease the likelihood over
> time (an amazingly short amount of time) - and he also indicated that
> after a while, it was unlikely that anyone would even be able to 
> determine on demand the actual path that any given circuit takes... :-/

Naturally - they make a lot more money lying to you and then paying the
penalty when they get caught.  Like 100% SLAs - a provider who offers a
100% SLA *knows* they can't actually meet their guarantee, so they budget
in $X for payment of the penalties.  And sometimes they even make the
process ridiculous to get your refund.

Of course, we don't know any providers that would do something like that,
do we? :)

> I certainly hope that the systems for tracking this have improved,
> and also that they keep better track of DS3s and SONET better than
> they do DS1s.... but I'm skeptical.

So am I. :((

I know *exactly* which cables my E1s/T1s/DS3s/etc. are using - but I ain't
got nearly as many as an MCI or a UUNET.  I hear it's easier to do if you
don't have a bazillion of them. ;)  (OTOH, perhaps one should not use a
provider that is so big the provider's engineering staff cannot even manage
their own network.)

>                                       dave (now celebrating my 8th year
>                                               of retirement from running 
>                                               networks :-)

                                              Congrats. :-)

TTFN,
patrick

I Am Not An Isp - www.ianai.net
ISPF, The Forum for ISPs by ISPs, <http://www.ispf.com>
"Think of it as evolution in action." - Niven & Pournelle
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