All true but it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine if a provider is using another providers infrastructure (all are at some level). For example, in the SIP world there are several national level carriers that are using Level 3s core SIP network and if you were not aware of that you could buy trunks from two of the largest SIP trunk providers in the US and actually be running on the same network. Carriers are also very often reliant on the ILEC for fiber and last mile access. Especially in non-metro areas getting diverse last mile access could be impossible or have huge construction costs. It is pretty complicated to ensure that your carriers are really diverse and much harder to ensure that they stay that way. I have many examples of carrier grooming their own primary and backup circuits onto the same L1 path and not realize they have done so.
Contractual diversity is a great idea that does not work since the carriers do not actually know what each other’s network looks like. So let’s say that Sprint and CenturyLink choose the same fiber carrier between areas, do you think they would notify each other of that fact? Do you think the fiber carrier would tell them what another customer’s network looks like? You can tell Sprint to not use CenturyLink but there is no way to get both of them not to use the same third party. I suppose you could contractually tell a carrier to avoid xxx cable but I would have little faith that they maintain that over time. I seriously doubt they review all existing contracts when re-grooming their networks.
You can mitigate some of that by getting contract language in place that says a carrier must maintain the circuit on the specified and agreed pathway, and if it’s later discovered that it has been moved, you don’t pay for the circuit from the time it was moved until it is restored.
It’s a nice bit of leverage to make sure they DO pay attention when they regroom to avoid surprises.
Who is selling this product? I know SLA compensations on service
disruptions is a thing, but there the downside seller is carrying is
limited to MRC, that is seller gets higher margin on SLA products than
nonSLA, when when outages are factored in. I don't see the business
case for the seller in contractual terms you are proposing. The
amendment has to make more money for the seller, otherwise there is no
point for them to sell it, unless of course the product is
unmarketable without the amendment.
I would anticipate if this product is available the seller limits
downside in the contracts in such way that it will always be
profitable to the seller to sell the insurance to you.
This was a product available from the earliest Bell System days. You could specify a couple of options. One is local path redundancy or diversity - intended to get you to another central office and not use the same cable as another specified circuit. A second option is called avoidance where you could tell the phone company to avoid a certain area. AT&T would let you order a SONET node which guaranteed two different entrances for fiber ring going through at least two different COs, expensive and you pay the install or agree to megalong contract terms for a minimum number of access circuits.
As an example, the US Government ordered command and control circuits and explicitly had them avoid major metro areas (that were likely nuclear targets). The deal in practice though is that these options were rarely ordered since whoever orders it pays all the initial construction costs. If you building wants a connection to other than your home CO, you have to pay for all of the plant construction to reach a point where you could catch a cable going that way.
As to who is selling it? Almost anyone if you pay for that level of custom engineering. More importantly, can you verify it? The US Government had a deal with AT&T to show them the entire AT&T backhaul network architecture. Not many customers get that level of access. If anything they are going to show you the "lines between cities" type map that we all know has little to do with reality on the ground.
Correct. Its called a grooming clause and you can most certainly ensure you have language in your agreements with the vendor. Restrictions being it needs to be for wavelength or an IRU path which is custom anyhow. Also, KMZs or no business. Period.
