Hi folks- I have a problem that I need some advice on, and figured this was a good place to turn. We are attempting to connect a T1 to Sprint in order to multi-home our network. Currently we are connected to multiple points on MCI's backbone, and have just installed a T1 to UUnet. We heard back from Sprint today.. they are rejecting us as a customer because we do not use Cisco routers. Apparently they feel that Bay Networks routers are not capable of routing Internet traffic, ignoring the fact that they already peer with ANS and several other providers using Bay routers. OK, Cisco bigots (hi Craig!), quit laughing at me for a second and give me some help here. Is there any technical justification for what Sprint is telling me? I have downstream customers using Bay, Cisco, HP, 3com, Compatible Systems, and even Proteon routers. All of them are able to connect with me just fine. I've been running BGP4 peering with MCI for over a year now, it also works fine. I can't find a single valid reason that Sprint should even need to "approve" my router vendor, except that some short-sighted engineer at Sprint doesn't understand that we live in a multi-vendor world. I'm obviously not going to force Sprint to accept my money, but this screws up a lot of the plans we have made in building our network. Any suggestions welcome. Anyone from Sprint who'd like to comment, please do so. -Jon ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Jon Green * Wide-Area Networking Technician * * jon@netINS.net * Iowa Network Services, Inc. * * Finger for Geek Code/PGP * 312 8th Street, Suite 730 * * #include "std_disclaimer.h" * Des Moines, IA 50309 * -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Green writes:
Hi folks-
I have a problem that I need some advice on, and figured this was a good place to turn. We are attempting to connect a T1 to Sprint in order to multi-home our network. Currently we are connected to multiple points on MCI's backbone, and have just installed a T1 to UUnet. We heard back from Sprint today.. they are rejecting us as a customer because we do not use Cisco routers. Apparently they feel that Bay Networks routers are not capable of routing Internet traffic, ignoring the fact that they already peer with ANS and several other providers using Bay routers.
You are actually getting some misinformation. You can use any router you want, we just can't help you configure things other than Cisco routers. If you want us to manage your router, then it must be a Cisco, otherwise use whatever you want.
Any suggestions welcome. Anyone from Sprint who'd like to comment, please do so.
Tell your Sprint sales folks that I said it was fine and approve the SCA. If they have any questions, have them call me. -Hank Kilmer Mgr Sprint IP OPS Engineering
Were I in your shoes, I would go back to Bay. It's certainly in their interests to use their corporate weight to get more of an audience with Sprint, and / or resolve any problems Sprint has with their box. ========================================================================= Tom N. Eastgard, Mgr Ph: 206/649-7414 Network Engineering email: eastgard@nwnet.net NorthWestNet Pager: 206/917-0647 On Wed, 25 Sep 1996, Jon Green wrote:
Hi folks-
I have a problem that I need some advice on, and figured this was a good place to turn. We are attempting to connect a T1 to Sprint in order to multi-home our network. Currently we are connected to multiple points on MCI's backbone, and have just installed a T1 to UUnet. We heard back from Sprint today.. they are rejecting us as a customer because we do not use Cisco routers. Apparently they feel that Bay Networks routers are not capable of routing Internet traffic, ignoring the fact that they already peer with ANS and several other providers using Bay routers.
OK, Cisco bigots (hi Craig!), quit laughing at me for a second and give me some help here. Is there any technical justification for what Sprint is telling me? I have downstream customers using Bay, Cisco, HP, 3com, Compatible Systems, and even Proteon routers. All of them are able to connect with me just fine. I've been running BGP4 peering with MCI for over a year now, it also works fine. I can't find a single valid reason that Sprint should even need to "approve" my router vendor, except that some short-sighted engineer at Sprint doesn't understand that we live in a multi-vendor world. I'm obviously not going to force Sprint to accept my money, but this screws up a lot of the plans we have made in building our network.
Any suggestions welcome. Anyone from Sprint who'd like to comment, please do so.
-Jon
----------------------------------------------------------------- * Jon Green * Wide-Area Networking Technician * * jon@netINS.net * Iowa Network Services, Inc. * * Finger for Geek Code/PGP * 312 8th Street, Suite 730 * * #include "std_disclaimer.h" * Des Moines, IA 50309 * -------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Wed, 25 Sep 1996 17:44:06 -0500 Jon Green <jon@worf.netins.net> alleged:
Hi folks-
I have a problem that I need some advice on, and figured this was a good plac e to turn. We are attempting to connect a T1 to Sprint in order to multi-home our network. Currently we are connected to multiple points on MCI's backbone , and have just installed a T1 to UUnet. We heard back from Sprint today.. they are rejecting us as a customer because we do not use Cisco routers. Apparently they feel that Bay Networks routers are not capable of routing Internet traffic, ignoring the fact that they already peer with ANS and several other providers using Bay routers.
I'd say take your custom elsewhere. Neil. -- Neil J. McRae. Alive and Kicking. E A S Y N E T G R O U P P L C neil@EASYNET.NET NetBSD/sparc: 100% SpF (Solaris protection Factor) Free the daemon in your <A HREF="http://www.NetBSD.ORG/">computer!</A> BTnet support reply regarding 45 minutes of no service: "BGP FNF, BGP A OK, BT ISP A OK, MFI NO GO!!" -- Bill.Peters@bt.net
OK, Cisco bigots (hi Craig!), quit laughing at me for a second and give me some help here. Is there any technical justification for what Sprint is telling me? I have downstream customers using Bay, Cisco, HP, 3com, Compatible Systems, and even Proteon routers. All of them are able to connect with me just fine. I've been running BGP4 peering with MCI for over a year now, it also works fine. I can't find a single valid reason that Sprint should even need to "approve" my router vendor, except that some short-sighted engineer at Sprint doesn't understand that we live in a multi-vendor world. I'm obviously not going to force Sprint to accept my money, but this screws up a lot of the plans we have made in building our network.
Simple really. Sprint have a back-door deal with Cisco, either for money or favours (like getting bugs fixed :-) that means that they will only allow Cisco boxes to connect. Remeber kids, most of the scaling problems on the internet today are because people insist that Cisco boxes are the highest common denominator. Not the lowest, as they really are. Regards, -- Peter Galbavy peter@wonderland.org @ Home phone://44/973/499465 in Wonderland http://www.wonderland.org/~peter/ snail://UK/NW1_6LE/London/21_Harewood_Avenue/
Simple really. Sprint have a back-door deal with Cisco, either for money or favours (like getting bugs fixed :-) that means that they will only allow Cisco boxes to connect.
First, careful readers of this forum would have noticed that the head of SL Ops said right here that the restriction is non-op. Second, the reasons suppliers of service (in general, not just internet) ask customers to standardize on CPE is that experience has taught us that in 99% of the cases we are going to be dealing with the CPE. "Against our wills, Papa! Against our wills!" The solution I recommend is for the provider to charge T&M for dealing with CPE which they do not supply. When presented with the real costs, consumers tend toward wiser decisions. randy
On Thu, 26 Sep 96 05:09 PDT, randy@psg.com writes:
Simple really. Sprint have a back-door deal with Cisco, either for money or favours (like getting bugs fixed :-) that means that they will only allow Cisco boxes to connect.
First, careful readers of this forum would have noticed that the head of SL Ops said right here that the restriction is non-op.
Second, the reasons suppliers of service (in general, not just internet) ask customers to standardize on CPE is that experience has taught us that in 99% of the cases we are going to be dealing with the CPE. "Against our wills, Papa! Against our wills!"
The solution I recommend is for the provider to charge T&M for dealing with CPE which they do not supply. When presented with the real costs, consumers tend toward wiser decisions.
I tend to agree. That's how we operate our business. We resell Bay Networks equipment to downstream customers. They are free to use whatever equipment they want, but official support is only provided for Bay routers which the customer buys from us. I say official because I have been known to fix a Cisco for a customer too. Most of their configurations are fairly simple - PPP and static routing. I would never expect Sprint, MCI, or whoever to support my router or diagnose problems with it. We have two people on staff to do that, and also pay a large chunk of money to Bay every year for a 24 hour support contract. I can understand Sprint's point of view, but they can easily just say "We absolutely 100% will not help you with configuration problems unless you use our equipment." That's perfectly acceptable to me. Sounds like that is in fact their official policy, but they have some internal communications problems. -Jon ----------------------------------------------------------------- * Jon Green * Wide-Area Networking Technician * * jon@netINS.net * Iowa Network Services, Inc. * * Finger for Geek Code/PGP * 312 8th Street, Suite 730 * * #include "std_disclaimer.h" * Des Moines, IA 50309 * -------------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (6)
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Henry Kilmer -
Jon Green -
Neil J. McRae -
Peter Galbavy -
randy＠psg.com -
Tom Eastgard