On Mon, 25 May 1998, John Fraizer - Administrator wrote:
In all honesty, the only time I have experienced packet loss to any destination, it has been isolated and attributed to (heat/cold/incompetence/emergency, unscheduled maintenance - PICK ONE, seems like the MAE operators do) at one of the MAEs or some idiot with too much backhoe and too little clue.
You're saying that you never experience packet loss to _any_ destination unless it's some kind of emergency situation? I find that hard to beleive. What if the destnation's network is chronically congested? Or if the exchange point between your upstream provider and the destination's provider is congested? Or some other fill_in_the_blank ongoing non-emergency problem at the destiantion? I have no doubt that you maintain an excellent network, and that you have an excellent working relationship with your upstream provider, but how are they going to control what is occuring within {big Tier 1 provider}.
If you are accepting packet loss as "normal and unavoidable", your provider is making excuses vs isolating and eliminating problems in their network or in their interconnect at the MAEs.
Obviously no-one is interested in putting up with packet loss or latency if it can be avoided, but do you really beleive that _any_ nationwide 'backbone' provider is going to be able to isolate and eliminate every problem with their public NAP interconnections? Somehow it seems much more likely to me that at least one of the NAP interconnect destinations is going to sit on their hands about it, for whatever reason. However, my main point was that _any_ solution that works for the customers, whether it be via the provider John has mentioned, or be via private exchanges, or bouncing packets off of Mars, is the best solution, and that there is no 'one-size-fits-all' solution for this ongoing dilemma. SGA