Well, while Sean's wording at times is, ahem, suboptimal, he is referring to a real problem in the Internet System, and in fact one that the North American Network Operators Group should take responsibility for, at least for the North American part. The problem is what others believe is a strength: an anarchic system of many autonomous service providers with little or no service model/metrics (neither for the local nor for the system level), and no well defined rules of conduct for interoperation and problem resolution.
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This all should be critical to the NANOG agenda if the service providers would want to continue to provide quality services.
I think it is an attitude problem of people largely caring about their own swamp.
And to make matters more confusing, not all service providers agree on what level of service should be provided. I think the NANOG is the perfect place to discuss what we think should be the minimum acceptable service level, as well as what can be expected in terms of inter-provider help and cooperation. Sean's comments are, in my opinion, useful as a basis for discussion, and completely appropriate. I think we all need to discuss our expectations in an open forum. We may never agree, but at least we can disagree politely, Larry Plato ANS Network Operations include <std.disclaimer> /* I speak only for myself */