Horrible Service Agreements

Sun Nov 30 17:18:15 UTC 1997

I wasn't going to post to this, but I can't resist.

Forrest, do you have an AUP? If you have an AUP, have you submitted it to the
laywers for the people you are looking at dealing with? It may be that with
a well written anti-spam AUP and a specific response procedure, they may
say that you have done enough to avoid the carrier exercising these terms.
I understand the fear of contracts like this, but often they can be managed
by finding proactive stances that the other side agrees will protect you
from the contract clauses.

As for the equipment issue, I feel little sympathy. I have had to go in
and clean up swamp pits of archaic hardware and software. I am not saying
that's what you are, but I am saying that the service providers are quite
reasonable in setting minimum hardware standards for BGP customers. Remember
that as a BGP speaker, you can cause them great trouble. They aren't doing
this to stick it to you, they have learned to cover their a** from people
who refuse to run current hardware/software. If you're still totally wrapped
up in this, see if you can change the contract release terms in this case.

And finally. Life's too short to obsess about these kinds of issue. If you
run your ISP right, these won't be a problem. If you don't run your ISP right,
these won't be your real problem. In the time you have been upset about
this, you could have a well written AUP with procedures in place that would
make any transit provider happy. If you understand the implications of BGP
and do your part well, no one's ever going to bother you.

jerry