First thing is to be an educated consumer. Know what going rates and sla s cost for a given service. Also check the rep of the vendor. I find that competitive bids work well. Unless your a gov or something you dont have to take the lowest bid - take the best one. -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Giagnocavo <patrick@zill.net> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 10:32 AM To: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> Subject: Contract negotiations advice? I am dealing with a large telecom which purchased the small telecom I signed a contract with. Despite signing only 1 contract with them, the two racks, and the bandwidth which feeds 1 rack (I connect privately to the second rack at no charge) all have different termination dates. How signing one contract resulted in 3 different end of term dates, months apart, I can't quite figure out. Can anyone point me to a mailing list or discussion forum containing advice on dealing with such issues? And the wider issue of negotiating good rates with telecoms? Cordially Patrick Giagnocavo patrick@zill.net