Duncan -
First of all, i apologize in advance for any misspellings. I am working in
a telnet session across a slow dial-in connection as I am on the road. It's
making editing diffacult. Anyway, in this instance, I am looking at SDSL
products. I am still running into a lot of problems. Most of them seem to
be related to the marketing of DSL. It's pretty apparant that outside of a
few companies most DSL providers are targeting homes and really small
businesses as their customers. I dont think it would take much for DSL
providers to invest in senior sales reps who work with business that require
more knowledge then the average user. I understand that every caller is not
looking for the 1MB+ SDSL connections. I would assume that these carry the
higher profits for DSL vendors. If a caller where to call and start asking
about the larger bandwidth connections, the on phone sales reps could bring
in the "higher end" reps to help them complete the sale. Most of the ISP's
I work with do not send techs on sales calls. They send their reps who are
knowledgable in their products, but who are not necessiarly technical.
Also, I dont think asking for a well written SLA is too much to ask for both
ADSL and SDSL. I don't know if you read the one I posted to the group the
other day, but most of what I am finding is a joke. A good properly written
SLA can guarantee a lot of things while excluding the local loop. Why
couldn't a DSL provider state that their network will work with-in certain
parameters upto the local loop. They should be able to guarantee a certain
level of latency between their gateways and certain points on the network.
In addition, they should be able to guarantee that your link is going to
stay up and operate in the parameters and speed for which your paying. If I
am told that I am getting 256K up and 128K down, the DSL provider should be
able to provide that guarantee in writing. In addition, the support hours
for the Help Desk / NOC should be spelled out as well as anticipated support
levels (i.e. 3% call abandoment, 90 of calls answered within 3 minutes,
etc).
Anyway, this is just my opnion. Maybe I am way off, but I expect my
commucation providers to be able to provider some level of expertise on
thier product. I also expect them to be able to provider a written
agreement stating how intend to keep the service working.
Joe
>
> Joe,
>
> Due to the copper technology, unknown cable lengths and reliance on Bell
> Atlantic's network we do not offer a SLA on ADSL connections. If you would
> like a SLA you need to get SDSL which will guarantee a set amount of
> bandwidth. All DSL providers will give you an ambiguous SLA for ADSL
> connections, if they don't they are foolish.
>
> As for the sales people, what do you expect? These people are trained in
> basic DSL technologies that they will need to assist customers. I think it
> was good she knew what BGP was and gave a somewhat accurate description of
> it. If the sales people were more technical don't you think they would get
> a technical job? DSL in general is a low income business. You would be
> amazed how little that is made each month off of a DSL service. If you
> think a larger company will be more help you are mistaken. Sales
> departments of larger companies will be more separated from their technical
> staff. If you live in the DC area you can call us and you can talk to the
> guy that setup our network.
>
> Duncan
>
> At 02:07 PM 4/28/00 -0700, Chuck Larrieu wrote:
> >So if you were writing an SLA, what points would you include?
> >
> >We guarantee your traffic except in summer spring, winter, and fall
> >
> >We guarantee 99.9% uptime except when we don't
> >
> >We guarantee that our special protocols are used by no more than 100% of our
> >competitors
> >
> >We guarantee that if we fail to meet our SLA we will refund the prorated
> >portion of your monthly fee for that period of time when levels are not
> >met.. ( small print - we base our commitment on average uptime between the
> >hours of midnight and 3:a.m. on the fifth Saturday of every month. For those
> >months with only four Saturdays, we use the number 0 as weighting )
> >
> >Chuck
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
> >Annlee Hines
> >Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 1:36 PM
> >To: cisco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >Subject: Re: Good For a Laugh
> >
> >I don't see any mention of the special protocol in here...perhaps that's not
> >covered.
> >
> >Annlee
> >
> >"Chuck Larrieu" wrote in message
> ><003e01bfb12e$ec9409c0$02fea8c0@xxxxxxxxxxxx>...
> > >Hhhmmmmmm.........
> > >
> > >So DSL does NOT have "local loops" ......
> > >
> > >Interesting.
> > >
> > >Kind of an Orwellian manipulation of the language.
> > >
> > >
> > >The other thing is that all providers seem to say the same thing - we
> > >guarantee your traffic except when we don't
> > >
> > >Chuck
> > >
> > >-----Original Message-----
> > >From: nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joe
> > >Szczepanski
> > >Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 7:04 AM
> > >To: cisco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > >Subject: Good For a Laugh
> > >
> > >I sent an earlier message about DSL providers, if you want a good laugh,
> > >look at the SLA I just received from one of them.
> > >
> > ><dsl-provider> guarantees a minimum of 80% through put on all our ultraDSL
> > >connections. <dsl-provider> will credit customer's account if
> > ><dsl-provider> fails to meet this guarantee according to the provisions
> > >stated below:
> > ><dsl-provider>'s Service Level Agreement for Internet access:
> > ><dsl-provider>'s Network will provide 99.99% up time. <dsl-provider> will
> > >credit customer's account if <dsl-provider> fails to meet this Availability
> > >Guarantee according to the following provisions:
> > >
> > >At customer's request, <dsl-provider> will calculate customer's "Network
> > >Unavailability" in a calendar month. "Network Unavailability" consists of
> > >the number of minutes that the <dsl-provider> Network is unreachable to
> > >customer. <dsl-provider> is not responsible for outages directly related
> >to
> > >customer's local telephone T1 circuit outages. <dsl-provider> is not
> > >responsible for Internet outages that extend beyond the <dsl-provider>
> > >Network. <dsl-provider> reserves the right to periodically perform
> > >maintenance and upgrades on equipment which may cause a brief lapse in
> > >customer's service. For each cumulative hour of Network Unavailability in
> > >any calendar month, customer's account shall be credited for the pro-rated
> > >charges for one day of the <dsl-provider> Monthly Fee. We offer 24 by 7
> > >support and we answer the phone. Our network is extremely strong. We have
> > >an OC12 on top of 2 OC3's in our Network Operations Center. Our NOC is at
> >a
> > >constant 64 degrees and everything is rack mounted. We have multiple DS3
> > >connections to 4 different National Backbones. Our network rides on Cisco
> > >series 7000 routers that run BGP4. Your traffic will always be routed out
> > >whichever line is cleanest at that second. We guarantee our client's
> > >bandwidth in writing.
> > >Once we receive the go ahead from a client, the overall installation time
> >is
> > >between 3-6 weeks. DSL does not have local loops and you will never see a
> > >bill from your phone company. The hardware will run network address
> > >translation or we can cut you IP addresses.
> > >
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> >
> >
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> ===========================================
> Duncan Maccubbin | DuncanM@xxxxxxxx
> Senior Network Engineer
> MCP+I,MCSE,CCNA,CCDA,CCNP
> CapuNet, LLC - Corporate Internet Solutions
> (301) 881-4900 x8039
> ===========================================
>
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