Re: UUNET service

[Richard A Steenbergen <ras () e-gerbil net>]

On Mon, Apr 15, 2002 at 10:17:49AM -0400, Bradley Corner wrote:
> Thanks for all the 'wonderful' input. I guess most of you feel that the
> attitude of UUNET is appropriate. When I read responses on NANOG I am
> utterly surprised by the total lack of professionalism. I have always
> prided myself on my education and experience and my Professional
> attitude towards my peers. I guess I am just being naive.

NANOG is not really the appropriate forum to be fielding "why can't I
reach this network, can someone from UU help?" questions. It's slightly
more interesting then "Where can I get a T1 in Alaska?" or "What is the
number for Soandso's NOC" though, so some bored people took the time to
glance at your problem, parse that horribly unreadable traceroute, and
tell you that it really isn't UU's problem.

It sounds like you are looking for someone in sales or support who is paid
to stroke you and make you feel better, not engineers who are going to
tell you the truth. That is why most of this list is not allowed to talk
to customers. Deal. :)

> I do agree that the problem is with one of UUNET's customers. I,
> however, think that UUNET should proactively call there customer to
> resolve network issues.

I personally believe in the benefits of looking into problem reports from
anyone who will call and complain, but I also understand why UU cannot. As
a small provider, this is probably quite doable. As a HUGE provider, they
would have to triple their staff just to keep up with all the customers of
a customer. Then they would have to have first level engineers with logic
and problem solving skills, who could determine if there was actually a
problem or not. And once word got out that UU would take calls from 
anyone, every schmuck, crackpot, and prank call would be reporting 
something somewhere. It's just not an easily scalable solution.

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras () e-gerbil net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177  (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA  B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)