..and you can deploy SONET without a protect.

-and telcos usually do. but they almost always tell you it's protected. -force them to test, or pull one side yourself. and repeat the test every -quarter. -randy And if you find it is on a fiber mux-- DDM 1000, good luck.. a few years ago I spent at least 20-30 hours trouble shooting 4 t-1's to customers on a "redundant mux" going to an older but large business park. They seem to all drop within 5 minutes of each other. Bell claimed it to be us. long story short-- the protect was broken and we found out it had been so for months. all the data circuits (22 of em) seemed to experience 4-5 seconds are strangness daily... and the 1 voice customer on that OC-3 went to POTS because of the problems..... Moral of the story-- Having a SONET ring, a protect, and all manner of things, may not really help.... Unless it really and truly does work.... J