Frame-Relay reliability (was Re: who gets a /32)

Sean Donelan sean at donelan.com
Mon Nov 22 21:54:05 UTC 2004


On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Nils Ketelsen wrote:
> Servicelevels on the Internet suck. Thats the main reason not to use
> it for anything important. If my frame-connection fails I open my hand and
> my provider pays a lot until it works again. If "the Internet fails", I
> have no one I can squeeze the money out of.
>
> That massively increases a FR-Providers motivation to have their network
> running. Penalties can never make up for a lost connection (no
> provider has enough cash at hand) but it is a nice PART (P=Provider).

Yeah right.  That's why Worldcom's frame-relay network was "unusable" for
about 10 days and took out part of the Chicago Board of Trade elecronic
trading system.

What's interesting is most major providers' Internet service SLA is
often better than their SLA for other services, including TDM.  If
your Internet service has problems (not just down) you may get from 0%
to 100% or more credit.  But if your circuit is down, it doesn't really
matter.  Of course, your SLA probably depends a lot on how much you
normally pay the provider.  If you are buying an oc48c, you'll probably
pay for a different SLA than the modem dialup account.





More information about the NANOG mailing list