multi-homing fixed

Wed Aug 29 04:05:58 UTC 2001

On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, David Hares wrote:

> True enough.  But you don't really need multiple POPs in a city.  Frame
> Relay and ATM are both distance insensative, pricewise.  Most, if not all,
> of the serious players have discounts off list from various providers so
> it's reasonable to provision one or more circuits well out of the local
> area.  Deals can usually be worked for dedicated facilites too.

Hmm...we usually get hit with extra charges for crossing lata boundaries.
I wouldn't say Frame is entirely distance insensative.

Besides, even if a little guy in Gainesville, FL does get Frame to say
UUNet in Miami and Jacksonville, this'll take care of when one of your
circuits goes out and UUNet or Bell can't figure out what happened for 12
hours, but it totally ignores the fact that at times (often for extended
times) peering connections between various Tier-1's suck.  I remember at
least one time for several weeks when crossing between UUNet and Sprint
meant >1000ms response times.

Redundancy is only one reason to multihome.  More paths (hopefully at
least one per destination that doesn't suck) is another big one, and
you're not going to get this benefit from adding N circuits to one "big
clued-in provider"...though you might get it from a medium sized regional
provider that buys transit and doesn't have overloaded peering
connections.

-- 
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