Hey, just for kicks I thought I'd forward this along.
A little history: I got contacted today by some droid from qwest saying
"Who is your network provider?" That's it, 100% of the email. So I wrote
back busting his chops a little bit, and his boss writes me trying to
cover his ass, and I bust his bosses chops a little, and then I get the
following forwarded reply.
Anybody know some contacts at qwest who would like to see this?
Wow! So tell me, how does a functional illiterate like yourself get a job
at an RBOC these days? Mmm, perhaps that's a foolish question. Did you
ever think it would be your inability to communicate that would make you
this famous? Can I have your autograph?
On the other hand, you could be a nice guy and give Mr. Gull a day to think
about his actions, kiss your butt, and offer a profuse apology, before taking
this drastic measure.
Personally I don't think it's an unfair question, however, I would think
that it is bad business for Qwest to make that their standard practice.
Something like this would probably go much further:
Hello,
I'm a sales droid from Qwest. I'm wondering who you are using as your
network provider, as Qwest has some very exciting opportunities that we
think you would be able to take advantage of. If you'd like more
information about our services, please reply to this email or give me a
call at the number below.
If it was sent FROM one person TO one person, it fails one of the primary
tests of whether an e-mail is spam. (bulk)
If it was mass-mailed to a bunch of people who didn't ask for it, it is
spam... if it was mailed to one person, it isn't spam even if that one
person never requested it in the first place.
Numerous noc addresses across the net have received it. Maybe not all at
once, as part of one large mailing, but it is most definitely a sustained
effort.
Ok, but I still say it's not a burden on the net if they're sending it out
manually to one person at a time.
As for it being a burden on your time, it's far less so than if they came
to your office to speak to you directly, or called you, and those are
not responded to with nearly the vehemence (and sometimes violence) of
email.
For God's sake, you don't have to hang up a phone, or escort someone to a
door here; you just hit "delete" and go on.
Andy could have just deleted it...but the message was rude and unnecessary
for a variety of reasons.
I know expecting a sales droid to know how to use tools like nslookup or
"show ip bgp" on a route server is probably a little too much, but where's
the relevance in their even knowing who you use for transit?
I suppose if the answer was UUNet/Sprint/BBN, the Qwest response would be
"well, we can save you up to 50% on your transit"...and if the response
was "we have a frame connection from the mom & pop ISP down the road" the
Qwest response would be "well, for just a few more eggs a week, we can
provide you with a much faster more reliable connection."
If they really want to make sales, there are much better ways to make
first contact than "who's your internet provider?". How about "we're
currently running a special and we can provide you with full T1/T3 for
$X/$Y per month plus (or maybe including) loop with no install fee."
A phone call is even better since you can either say "we're not
interested" or ask them lots of questions if you are interested or even
say things like "but carrier X is selling us that for Y, can't you do
better than that?" Coming for a meeting is even better. Make them take
you to lunch to pitch their service.
Imagine the response you'd get if you managed to get a mailing list of all
your competitors' customers and sent them all an email asking "who do you
currently use for dial-up access?" Think they'd come beating down your
door to buy service from you?
Hello I was wondering if there was a picture or map that could show the
the internet traffic in the same way that the now DEFUNCT www.internettrafficreport.com use to show
I have utilized keynotes Internet Health Report at www.internethealthreport.com It does not provide the
same reporting as the Internet traffic but it does
provide some useful insight on network peering and
intra-operational issues. Please let me know of other
resources you find.....
