Results of North American NOC contact information verification

Thu Oct 2 23:41:16 UTC 1997

I recently tried to verify the contact information for all of the
USA peers of DRA.  I did this by calling the phone number given
when we first established peering, either by e-mail or on the
written peering agreement, as modified by the last update of
contact information received from the peer.  Considering some of
the information was nearly two years old, it was better than
I thought.

All calls were during normal USA business hours, so after-hour
contacts weren't verified.  I checked there was no major Internet
outages reported before calling so I didn't interrupt extrem NOC
chaos.

In the script I used, I identified myself, identified DRA as a "Peer"
of the ISP at XYZ exchange points, and asked to confirm the telephone
number and e-mail address of the ISP's network operation center.  If
necessary I explained what a network operations center was, or asked
who I should call to report a network problem.  I didn't require access
to the network engineering staff.  A customer service person was Ok as
long as they could confirm the correct telephone number for reporting
network problems and e-mail address for the NOC.

   Successes
	21	Eventually reached NOC or someone who knew what a NOC was and
		   could take a trouble report, some voicemail systems are
		   horrendous to navigate.  Longest time to reach a NOC
		   was 20 minutes, average was about three rings.

		We're making progress, only three NOCs reported they
		had only 1-800/1-888 numbers.  All the rest had some
		kind of direct dial phone number.

   Successes, but will eventually become failures
	3	reached NOC after area code change/same exchange & number
	2	reached NOC after telephone number changed with recording

   Failures
	6	disconnected/not in service/no new number
		    (growing fast due to end of permissive area code
		     changes in some parts of the country)
	3	number assigned to unrelated telephone subscriber
	1	ring/no answer (3 minutes before telco cut off the call)
	1	voicemail but no access without Touch Toning a customer
		   account number which I didn't have
	5	voicemail/human receptionist message, call never returned
		    (maybe a success, unknown if calls returned, but my
		     side failed or if they will return the call later)
	2	voicemail but never given a chance to leave a message
		    before hangup
	3	reached human who didn't know how to reach the NOC nor
		   take a problem report, but did answer the phone with the
		   listed company name

There really isn't any ISP size/problem correlation except the larger
the ISP, the more likely they have a voicemail system from hell.  If I
hear that my call may be monitored for quality assurance one more time,
I may scream.

Surprisingly only 4 people asked for my contact information for their
records.
-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
  Affiliation given for identification not representation