Abovenet vs UUnet

Tue Mar 28 13:58:24 UTC 2006

On Mar 28, 2006, at 8:42 AM, Peter Cohen wrote:

> On 3/27/06, andrew matthews <exstatica at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> So here is the deal, I've delt with both uunet and abovenet (mfn now)
>> in the past. And a long time ago i switched from abovenet to uunet
>> when i was with a different company.
>>
>> Now i'm with a company that has level 3 and Abovenet. Currently the
>> way the pricing is layed out is by staying with abovenet i'll save
>> about $1300 over UUnet. Money isn't too much of a concern currently
>> abovenet is much higher but we are at the time were we need to renew
>> our contract and we got it with a lower price.
>>
>> So which way? Abovenet or UUnet.. what are the pros and cons that
>> you've experienced and what kind of latency do you have over the
>> providers.
>
> Why don't you put together an RFP that addresses your most important
> requirements and send it out to several networks in order to get a
> basis from which to compare them, not just on price?    I mentioned a
> few weeks ago that an RFP would be a good basis from which to compare
> different networks objectively, instead of what opinions people might
> have with any given provider.   Also, where you are could eliminate or
> "no bid" some responses due to their congestion, lack of network
> there, etc...    I hope that helps!  There has to be some generic
> rfp's floating around the net that you can copy from (or not).    Good
> luck.

Why would someone believe what the networks tell them over what other  
_users'_ experiences are?  You say it is a good basis for comparison,  
but I have trouble believing that - unless you mean: "A good basis to  
see which network's marketing department is better."

If I were doing things like leased lines or dark fiber - something  
more objective and not quite such a moving target - an RFP might make  
sense.  For things like transit, you need real people who know how  
networks really react to real problems, how networks really pass real  
packets, how clueful real network NOC techs are, etc., etc.  None of  
these are covered in RFPs (despite what the networks might tell you).

So thanx for the suggestion, but I think I'll stick with _customer_  
feedback rather than what the networks want to tell me themselves.

Also, many networks will not respond to an RFP for the levels of  
traffic people here are considering.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

P.S. This is not a slam on Peter just 'cause Telia is proud of their  
RFP response department.  If you have to go the RFP route, it's nice  
to know that there's a network out there who is good at responding to  
them.