On Wed, 04 April 2001, Stephen Griffin wrote:

Again, very little reason to need multiple providers if the provider is good. If you're concerned about circuit grooming, write it into your contract with _severe_ penalties for failure to meet the terms of the contract.

Kung Fu flashback sequence: In time, you will understand. Fortunately, lawyers can not change the laws of nature or statistics no matter what they tell you. No matter what you write into your contract, stuff will go wrong. Car insurance means when you crash your car, the insurance company pays for a new car. It does not mean your car will never crash. By lowering the deductible, all you are changing is the premium you pay. Want a 99% SLA, the premium is $X. Want a 99.999% the premium is $X+N. Want 100% the premium is $X+X+N. VISA (the credit card people) uses two independent providers for its international network, and has a department of people verifying the redundancy of their network. The US Government uses two independent providers for its international network, and has a department of people verifying the redudancy of the circuits which "can't go down." Guess what, NORAD once lost all of its triple-redundant, diversely-routed circuits due to a carrier mistake. If you aren't the size of the US Government or VISA (I'm not sure which has more power) I suspect you won't be able to write penalties more severe than either of them imposed on the carriers. And even with those penalties, circuits still fail due to carrier mistakes. When I did the math, and paid money for circuits, I discovered for the premium I paid for a 100% SLA I could often buy two diverse circuits from two different providers with no SLA for less. And to cap it off, the actual reliability of those two circuits was better than the single 100% SLA circuit I would pay extra.