I recently tried to verify the contact information for all of the USA peers of DRA. I did this by calling the phone number given when we first established peering, either by e-mail or on the written peering agreement, as modified by the last update of contact information received from the peer. Considering some of the information was nearly two years old, it was better than I thought. All calls were during normal USA business hours, so after-hour contacts weren't verified. I checked there was no major Internet outages reported before calling so I didn't interrupt extrem NOC chaos. In the script I used, I identified myself, identified DRA as a "Peer" of the ISP at XYZ exchange points, and asked to confirm the telephone number and e-mail address of the ISP's network operation center. If necessary I explained what a network operations center was, or asked who I should call to report a network problem. I didn't require access to the network engineering staff. A customer service person was Ok as long as they could confirm the correct telephone number for reporting network problems and e-mail address for the NOC. Successes 21 Eventually reached NOC or someone who knew what a NOC was and could take a trouble report, some voicemail systems are horrendous to navigate. Longest time to reach a NOC was 20 minutes, average was about three rings. We're making progress, only three NOCs reported they had only 1-800/1-888 numbers. All the rest had some kind of direct dial phone number. Successes, but will eventually become failures 3 reached NOC after area code change/same exchange & number 2 reached NOC after telephone number changed with recording Failures 6 disconnected/not in service/no new number (growing fast due to end of permissive area code changes in some parts of the country) 3 number assigned to unrelated telephone subscriber 1 ring/no answer (3 minutes before telco cut off the call) 1 voicemail but no access without Touch Toning a customer account number which I didn't have 5 voicemail/human receptionist message, call never returned (maybe a success, unknown if calls returned, but my side failed or if they will return the call later) 2 voicemail but never given a chance to leave a message before hangup 3 reached human who didn't know how to reach the NOC nor take a problem report, but did answer the phone with the listed company name There really isn't any ISP size/problem correlation except the larger the ISP, the more likely they have a voicemail system from hell. If I hear that my call may be monitored for quality assurance one more time, I may scream. Surprisingly only 4 people asked for my contact information for their records. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation