First, if you are getting SPAMmed with <furlough> messages from NSF, sorry.
The server does it automagically. I am still reading my mail from home,
though now in an UNOFFICIAL capacity, as I am forbidden from performing
gummint service...
Next, please realize that the operational and implementor folks at Sprint
are held hostage to the big bureaucrazy problem: they have to wait each
year for the next budget cycle to play catch-up with their performance
needs.
So, do your best to help them by sending constructive comments to them for
them that they might show to their top-level management that is still
living in the days of voice telephony with 25-year depreciation cycles on
central office gear. Don't stop complaining, but try to give the clueful
guys within Sprint something to help them win the good fights internally.
This, obviously goes for other service providers, too.
--SG (Furloughed Fed)
First, if you are getting SPAMmed with <furlough> messages from NSF, sorry.
The server does it automagically. I am still reading my mail from home,
though now in an UNOFFICIAL capacity, as I am forbidden from performing
gummint service...
Oh, thats ok, we all love getting 7 or 8 email messages from NSF every
time we mail to a mailing list simply because they want us to know the
great loss we are experiencing due to the gov't shutdown. (I am pro NSF
for the record, but the pissing matches agencies have gotten into are
irksome, almost as much show as the grandstanding politicians.)
Next, please realize that the operational and implementor folks at Sprint
are held hostage to the big bureaucrazy problem: they have to wait each
year for the next budget cycle to play catch-up with their performance
needs.
I'm not blaming the implementors, I am blaming sprint corporate. They
are in a business they don't understand and don't care to.
So, do your best to help them by sending constructive comments to them for
them that they might show to their top-level management that is still
living in the days of voice telephony with 25-year depreciation cycles on
central office gear. Don't stop complaining, but try to give the clueful
guys within Sprint something to help them win the good fights internally.
Well, I tried constructive criticism, I tried writing email, I even tried
just telling the temps they hire to run the INSC /exactly/ what to type
in to fix a problem. Lets see, after that I got to explain to them what
the /?? postfix on IP adresses meant. You're right, we should /help/
them for proving that they cannot do their job or even find someone to
hire to do the job. Go sprint. Woowoo. Needless to say I don't have
fond thoughts when it conerns sprint's backbone. The designed a broken
backbone and then hired non-technical techs to handle the NOC desk.
There are about 4 good people at sprint that you actually get to talk to,
Elliot Alby, Diane (don't know her last name), and at least Mohammad and
Prassad will do what you tell them to. Sean Doran is great when you get
through to him (email only), and Rick Martin does a tolerable job with
news (in an organisation where tolerable is a bright spot). The fact of
the matter is that Sprint provides inferior service at market prices.
Any questions?
Diane, is great, but she left. 
And Rich Martin is not working wiht
sprint now. I love calling sprint and showing them what they need to do
to fix there news box.
Nathan Stratton CEO, NetRail, Inc. Your Gateway to the World!