From: Scott Landman <Scott_Landman@zd.com>
If fibers being cut is the culprit here, does going with a supplier like Qwest make sense because their fibers are running down railroad right of ways and, therefore, should be less succeptible to a backhoe digging where it shouldn't be? Or are you looking at other, more secure mediums for the bulk of your traffic?
The key is to go with multiple suppliers who can guarantee diverse routes. Carriers lease capacity from each other in some cases, so Sprint and MCI can give you circuits in the same physical fiber. Sprint and AT&T are implementing SONET protection switching which will reroute circuits around fiber cuts in 50ms. I don't know if they do it as a rule, or if you need to specify rerouting priority (and pay for it). It's interesting to look at a carrier's fiber map and compare it to a railroad map. You'll see MANY similarities. Railroad rights of way are the easiest areas to install fiber. -rb ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com