On Fri, 13 April 2001, Paul Timmins wrote:
Beyond getting on every single ISP's customer notification lists, is there a list that is dedicated to network outages? Or a website? It would be really helpful in my day job :-)
Your network provider should keep you informed about all network outages affecting their network, and keep you updated about any issues affected any of their peers or upstream networks. Some providers do a better job than others. If you provider doesn't do a good job, you should consider taking your business elsewhere. There is nothing posted on public mailing lists or reported on the wireservices your own provider couldn't tell you if they chose to. Different providers have very different cultures regarding informing customers. Everyone has problems, how they deal with the problems varies between providers. Historically, I've found these providers consistently have the best customer notification processes, year after year. This has nothing to do with how many problems a provider has. A provider may only have a single problem a year. 1. Genuity 2. AT&T 3. Ameritech (the NAP not the rest of AADS) Most providers fall in the middle ground. After a big problem, they get on the customer service train for a few months. But tend to fall back into their former habits. But like the Grammy's if you divide up the market enough ways, everyone can be number 1 in some catagory. Multi-homed tier-2 providers: Savvis Former baby bell providers: Pacific Bell Internet Web hosting/limited backbone providers: Abovenet Dialup access providers: Mindspring/Earthlink International exchange points in London: LINX