If you really need diversity, talk to _one_ carrier that can go everywhere you need. It's much easier for one proviioning group to make sure that your circuits don't go through the same fiber, ring, cross-connect, mux, or office if they have complete visibility to both circuits. Nigh impossible if you try to get two different carriers to cooperate like that, I would think. For better or worse, many times carriers wind up putting fiber right next to the competition. One tugboat crash, derailment that spills acid, backhoe, etc can take out all the routes for all the carriers. --Chris
-----Original Message----- From: Greg Pendergrass [SMTP:greg@band-x.com] Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 2:14 PM To: Brian; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: FIBER CUT: Dallas to West Coast
You always have to specify to the carrier that you want diversity. For longhaul, sometimes even big name providers will subcontract to another provider. For instance, you may get 1 OC-3 from MCI and another from Sprint, but both might be going through the same Qwest OC-192 from Denver to San Jose. I've seen it happen and it's always ugly for the buyer when someone backhoes it. You have to specify and sometimes pay more to be certain of your diversity.
Greg