That was precisely the point of my last note. I *want* to get involved in
finding a reliable way to measure network performance and I *want* to be
proactive at it. I absolutely hate telling customers that "pinging a cisco is
not a good indicator..." but like you say "there ain't no other way". Just as
ping and traceroute are not good indicators of performance, saying that they
aren't good indicators is *not* acceptable to customers paying money for your
service.
So just for the record, I'm not working for a provider and whining that it's
not our fault. I want to find a good way to measure peformance on my network
and I'd love to be able to publish some results. Guy Almes contacted me about
getting involved and that's just what I want to do.
-brett