contracts and survivability of telecom sector

Tue Oct 7 19:53:58 UTC 2008

> One special case to consider - your provider gets taken over, and the new owner
> regrooms the combined fiber networks, such that formerly physically diverse
> paths no longer are...

These are lessons many learned 7 years ago...

No circuit is "set and forget", including so-called "protected" 
services. The way long distance and international capacity is 
swapped/bartered/remarketed reminds me of the complaints about the 
current credit-default swap market (with all of the opacity!)

If you care about your reliability/survivability, you have to watch all 
of the motions that an acquisition/transition will have on your 
infrastructure [not just your future needs, but your current ones]. In 
BK's, we've seen plenty of fiber providers hand over entrance facilities 
that they had previously constructed to new entities and contract back 
for the capacity they need. So it *looks* like the provider X build out 
to your facility is completely diverse from provider Y, but they are no 
longer diverse [with little -> no internal to the facility change].

Be careful out there...

Deepak Jain
AiNET