I'm trying to gauge interest among San Francisco Bay Area operators (ISPs
and knowledgeable corporate customers) with respect to starting a mailing
list or forum dedicated to the notification of LEC operational issues
specific to the Bay Area.
I'm willing to run a list with a strict AUP. Such a list would allow
customers of PacBell, ICG, TCG, Brooks, MFS, etc. to communicate outages
such as the current DS0 shredding between Brooks and PacBell at SJ
SpacePark. I'm interested in an emphasis on the tandems and PRI (dialup)
related problems, but I'm sure there would be ample room for notifications
regarding fiber cuts, DACS failures, and similar issues.
If you are interested drop me a line. If sufficient interest arises, I'll
make it a full-blown list.
Jim Browne jbrowne@jbrowne.com
"I wish journalism would return to its glory days, when principled
incorruptible men like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were in
charge."- Vanessa Jackson, Piano Teacher, www.theonion.com
Similarly, is there such a thing as this in NYC? There's lots of
inter-LEC hanky-panky here...
And could someone define "DS0 shredding"?
Thanks,
Charles
I doubt that term is in general use. We use it around the office to
describe situations like the following:
A LEC and an ILEC meet at a Central Office, let's call is SJSP. Something
is wrong with the physical cross connect, say a flaky DS3 coxial cable.
The bit errors introduced by the flaky cable cause some ISDN calls and
digitized analog calls flowing through it to experience CRC errors. The
end-user manifestation is 40% packet loss of IP over ISDN calls and 56K
analog calls renegotiating to no end.
Why the LEC or ILEC don't notice the errors is beyond me. Why particular
ILECs seem to have this problem repeatedly is beyond me. Why the ILEC
frustrates end-users and LECs by futzing with LERG tables and tandem
capacity could be the subject of a good conspiracy theory. I admit that I
don't know SS7 as well as IP, but I do seem to be able to troubleshoot
these problems better than the people with the keys to the switch rooms.
Problems like this are difficult to pinpoint as they usually affect callers
coming from specific COs of the ILEC. End-users and ISPs are also not
granted access to any debugging or analysis information that would help
pinpoint and fix the problem. Telco ticket and front-line people have no
idea what you are talking about.
Thus, my desire to create the SF list. I have "inside" contacts at LECs
and would like to cooperate with other users who have similar contacts so
we can get these problems pinpointed, fixed, and hopefully apply positive
pressure on both the LECs and ILEC.
[I intend to keep SF-specific information off of NANOG. I felt the above
question warranted a response though, considering I used confusing
terminology.]
Jim Browne jbrowne@jbrowne.com
"I wish journalism would return to its glory days, when principled
incorruptible men like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were in
charge."- Vanessa Jackson, Piano Teacher, www.theonion.com
Of course the reason I asked, is I think we're suffering from it. What a
catchy term!
Symptoms sound similar, users at particular COs have problems, but maybe 4
out of 10 dial attempts. Analog users (the bulk of our userbase) can
connect OK if this happens, but the modem resends from 20-50% of all
'blocks'. If it's a USR, ati6 shows this after disconnecting. Not sure
exactly the unit 'block' is in modem speak... The end result is sub 1
Kb/s throughput, and a blinking error control light.
We've had almost zero success in getting this fixed. We track it (our own
office is on ILEC lines, modems on CLEC lines) and document times and
numbers dialed to/from, yet even with that info no one can (is willing?)
to fix it. Very annoying.
In the past, we got some Brooklyn COs fixed, but this is really like
playing whack-a-mole.
Charles
Be careful! The NANOG police are out in force and may soon be sending out
warrants for your arrest! Charges of offtopic soon to follow...
Tim
Disclaimer: Not that I'm bitter or anything.. 
> Of course the reason I asked, is I think we're suffering from it. What a
> catchy term!
Be careful! The NANOG police are out in force and may soon be sending out
warrants for your arrest! Charges of offtopic soon to follow...
Heheh, it is not limited to the SF Bay Area, but if your looking for a
CLEC list:
http://www.robotics.net/clec/cleclist.html
<>
Nathan Stratton Telecom & ISP Consulting
http://www.robotics.net nathan@robotics.net
Be careful! The NANOG police are out in force and may soon be sending out
warrants for your arrest! Charges of offtopic soon to follow...
You know, I didn't even intend to send to nanog. I'm a bit too touchy
with reply-to-all on this list, perhaps it's something subliminal.
I would put up quite a fight though if it came down to a fight over
whether telco issues or dns-policy were more appropriate...
Personally, I don't think either are, unless we're talking telco issues of
DS1 and above. Hence why I'm calling my post a blunder.
Charles
Said list has been created. If you care to join, send email to
majordomo@lists.alink.net and put the following in the message body:
SUBSCRIBE sf-telco myemailaddress@mydomain.xx
Replace "myemailaddress@mydomain.xx" with the email address at which you
would like to receive list messages.
Jim Browne jbrowne@jbrowne.com
"I wish journalism would return to its glory days, when principled
incorruptible men like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were in
charge."- Vanessa Jackson, Piano Teacher, www.theonion.com