links on the blink (fwd)

Mike mn at tremere.ios.com
Sat Nov 4 18:37:19 UTC 1995


On Sat, 4 Nov 1995, Hans-Werner Braun wrote:

> I have heard this argument very many times (and used it myself, and
> sure understand it at a technical level). It is a very network-centric
> argument serving a specific service provider.  As a customer I don't
> buy it. You guys need to take a customer centric approach and make the
> customers happy. You sell yourselves and get money as services providers
> for the *Internet* not your *local environment*.  If you only sell

no, we sell internet access. Your argument would require carmakers to 
provide for sufficiently scenic driving environment ;-)


> XYZnet services, not problem, but please then do not advertise you
> provide Internet services just because you are marginally connected to

we provide internet access services. Same with the phone: nobody 
guarantees you that you get through to china, isn't it?

> the rest of the world with no clue about how to make the NANOG and
> global system work.
> 
> In the end this will be a market driven by customers, not service
> providers. Customers will make the rules and will determine whether a
> service is good or lousy. Look for other examples. If my power outlets
> would regularly drop to 50 volts (or zero) I would get quite irritated.
>
this is not a good comparison: we talk reachability here, analogy would 
be phone networks.
Power: there is no geographical difference: 110Volts from Kansas look 
exactly the same as 110 Volts from Wisconsin. 

 "Power" is sold on the open market between service providers. I would
> not accept an argument from a local service provider that my power is
> always dropping because some service provider 2,000 miles away is
> screwing up. I would consider that to be their problem to watch out for


the service agreement here is not to reach that location, but to have 
power. and, btw: you do not get compensated for outages at all: if I must 
throwh away my freezer contents, they do not pay me for it. That's 
exactly like Internet access: if you cannot reach MIT because their link 
is down, we won't pay you your money back, and won't come up for any 
damages because you could not deliver a document or else.



> such things and to coordinate it right.  Same with phones. I don't care
> what region you are in, but if I would call you, above the 99th
> percentile, as long as you are close to your phone and pick up, my call
> will get through and work without significant service degradations
> *despite* the fact that there are at least three service prodivers

wrong: this week I triet to reach Chicago several times and got "sorry, 
your call cannot be completed at this time ...... try later". Can I now 
go to the phone company and say: "I did not reach my business partner to 
stop a deal and lost money, compensate me?".. I won't even try.

> (local, long distance, local) involved. Why? Because power and phone
> companies have their shit together on that stuff, and coordinate and

two weeks ago one of these nice transformers on the poles exploded about 
1.5 miles from here, sending a loud boom, and a fantastic power surge 
that burnt out a light bulb (my surge protector held). Don't even ask 
them to pay your stereo if it fries in such an incident.


> cooperate because they do understand they are all in the same boat. Of
> course, obviously it is not a fairly new and anarchic environment
> there, but has grown quite well into coordination. Are you guys up to
> it, or would you need regulation do it for you? Y'know, life can be

Regulation would make it better:I could sit back and point to a regulation.

> easier if your parents tell you what to do, if you cannot get your act
> together yourself. Less stress, too. Less flexibility as well, perhaps,
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

see two lines above re regulations ;-)

> but methinks we have to choose some optimization function here, and buy
> off on the cost.
> 
> In the end, this is not a sandbox for having a good time. People today

HOwever, I don't hate my job that much...

> *depend* on their network connection, and that it works is importenat
> to them. You *have* to go beyond just thinking locally.
> 

We do: we offer redundant dual homing and configure even your ospf or BGP 
for you. Even if you chose a different provider.

> 
> >On Sat, 4 Nov 1995, Nathan Stratton wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, 3 Nov 1995, Hans-Werner Braun wrote:
> >> 
> >> > I think Dave has the right idea here. Given the lousy overall network
> >> > performance that I (and others) are often seeing for months from
> >> > varieties of service providers, I think the service providers should be
> >> > forced to provide rebates. I frequently have 10% packet losses to get
> >> > from where I am to the Bay area (via New York). And my service
> >> > provider (CERFnet) is telling me that their service provider (Sprint)
> >> > is not even answering to their trouble reports.
> >> 
> >> Well, I think the problem is that providers lock people in 1 and 2 year 
> >> contracts so if people get bad service they are stuck. That is why I only 
> >> have month to month service, if people don't like there T1 then they can 
> >> quit. I think we need more providers to do that, I know of a lot users 
> >> that are on providers that want to switch, but have 8 months left on 
> >> their contract.
> >
> >Some comments from my side, which are, however, not official comments of 
> >IDT Internet Services:
> >
> >Internet works the way that a provider can only guarantee a standard of 
> >quality within the perimeter of the provider's networks. E.g. guarantee a 
> >customer that he is a certain number of hops away to the meetpoints, or 
> >hand out a latency matrix between POPs, guarantee that the packet loss is 
> >under a certain margin, and of course, guarantee a certain percentage of 
> >uptime.
> >
> >There is no way to talk about end to end connectivity quality assurance. 
> >I have at all times at least one customer raging about how bad we are 
> >reachable, and that his partners on other networks can only get to us 
> >with such and such a delay/packet loss/unavailability. 
> >
> >The understanding must be that a provider can ony control the own 
> >network. How traffic is routed outside is mostly uncontrollable, because 
> >most people do not run route servers yet that would take a policy from 
> >the radb (I have no special policy in btw, but will do this as soon as we 
> >run our route servers).
> >
> >>From this I would say it is a very different issue, if a provider has 
> >quality of service problems within the own network: e.g. a NOC not 
> >answering, sluggish links, packet loss above a normal tolerable level. 
> >I would say, that in 
> >such cases any contract can be terminated, and sued. But, of course a 
> >customer must be certain that the problems are caused within his 
> >provider's network. That's where most people are not sure, of course, 
> >even most 'consultants' have in reality no clue how to check something 
> >like this.
> >
> >Mike
> >
> >> 
> >> Nathan Stratton		  CEO, NetRail, Inc.    Your Gateway to the World!
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Phone   (703)524-4800			       NetRail, Inc.
> >> Fax     (703)534-5033                          2007 N. 15 St. Suite 5
> >> Email   sales at netrail.net                      Arlington, Va. 22201
> >> WWW     http://www.netrail.net/                Access: (703) 524-4802 guest
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> 
> >> 
> >
> >----------------------------------------------------------
> >                                                   IDT
> >Michael F. Nittmann                             ---------
> >Senior Network Architect                        \       /
> >(201) 928 1000 xt 500                            -------
> >(201) 928 1888 FAX                                \   /
> >mn at ios.com                                         ---
> >                                                    V 
> >                                                   IOS
> >
> >
> 
> 

----------------------------------------------------------
                                                   IDT
Michael F. Nittmann                             ---------
Senior Network Architect                        \       /
(201) 928 1000 xt 500                            -------
(201) 928 1888 FAX                                \   /
mn at ios.com                                         ---
                                                    V 
                                                   IOS




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