On 08/25/98 03:48:29 PM Sean M. Doran wrote:

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What about netflow ?

[to Vadim Antonov who said that _metering_ traffic is intractable]

Dear ISP - you have made an accounting error that I am able to demonstrate in my copious traffic logs. Please credit $x to my account.

or

Dear Customer - our copious traffic logs indicate that you generated x traffic last month. Please pay $x net 30 days. Thank you.

Dispute resolution -- it's fun!

i think this point is the single largest barrier to doing proper billing. isp billing needs to be as bullet-proof as telco/voice billing. i suspect that with many isp's (and certainly from some of my past experience) if customers would ever have disputed an invoice we wouldn't have had a leg to stand on. i'm sure some providers have good billing systems but i know many that don't yet they do some kind of usage based billing.

also, as useful as netflow can be, at oc-3 speeds and higher the sheer amount of data exported can be overwhelming both to routers and trunks (in agreement with vadim).

-brett

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please NOT that!!! I've spent the last 6 months trying to get my home phone bill straightened out with MCI and PacBell has been overbilling me for PVC's on my Frame Relay for 18 months. Please, let's not drop the internet to the level of service we all complain about from the Telcos. Owen