Hi there Rick! On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Rick Ernst wrote:
We are sending out feelers for adding an additional DS-3, or possibly frac OC-3. One of the responses came back with "we won't be competive with <provider> because they don't have their own backbone.
Alot of carriers that have a "Nationwide backbone" actually lease their circuits (Layer 1 and 2) through various other carriers.
Is there a cross-reference for provider vs network backbone, or is this just something that we have to ask each provider for? I "assume" that UU, Sprint, and AT&T are self-owned backbones, but others... ?
Wish I knew of one. Just keep in mind, though, that just because a carrier does not own it's own fiber / long-haul circuits does not mean they suck. It's the routers that are doing the work for the customer. A circuit is a circuit: it either works or it doesn't (wish I could say the same for IP routers.) For some people, this is a big issue (especially if the carrier is in or just coming out of Chapter 11 :-) .)
One of the providers we are looking at is Level-3. Any comments good/bad on reliability and clue? We already have UU, Sprint, and AT&T. I also realize that the "they suck less" list changes continuously... :)
We just migrated from Genuity to Level 3 down in Miami, FL. With careful planning, the total downtime was about 5 seconds. The engineer I worked with was excellent and very professional. Level 3 had an issue this past weekend that caused latency issues (due to the worm or some DDoS attack of a customer of theirs in Puerto Rico). We had some issues and it took a few hours to resolve, but that was it. Level 3's NOC and TMG were top-notch in talking to me and did not hold any information back. They are one of the nicest NOC groups I have ever spoken to. I have to give Level 3 a thumbs up. They really have a nice network and a good NOC/engineering staff. Hope this information helps you out. Matt