Doing traffic engineering right is hard. The telcos have it down pat
for their voice networks, and telco-based ISPs often have applied
this design expertise to their ISP network. Having a person do
traffic engineering can save the ISP big bucks.
I agree that traffic engieering is important and doing it well is hard.
However, I can point to many cases that demonstrate that the telco folks
don't have traffic engineering down pat for their voice networks. The great
majority of the cases show up in two areas: InterCO trunking and
Inter-provider (telco-to-telco trunking). Of course, it just may be the
telcos I deal with here in Texas. I can't speak of direct experiences with
everyone in the country.
I agree that traffic engieering is important and doing it well is hard.
However, I can point to many cases that demonstrate that the telco folks
don't have traffic engineering down pat for their voice networks. The great
majority of the cases show up in two areas: InterCO trunking and
Inter-provider (telco-to-telco trunking). Of course, it just may be the
telcos I deal with here in Texas. I can't speak of direct experiences with
everyone in the country.
This is true here in Southern California as well. "All circuits
are busy" and fast busy signals are on the increase, and the number of
64k channels for our ISDN users is diminishing such that many of them have
to dial 7 digits and use 56k channels if they want to get connections
during the midday.
Josh Beck - CONNECTnet Network Operations Center - jbeck@connectnet.com