Re: Industry practice for BGP costs - one time or fixed/monthly?

[Jimmy Hess <mysidia () gmail com>]

On 5/26/12, Matthew Palmer <mpalmer () hezmatt org> wrote:
> On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 09:39:16PM -0400, Luke S. Crawford wrote:
> > On Sat, May 26, 2012 at 10:06:03AM +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:

Whether $150/month or so just for BGP on a low-speed (sub-100M)
link is reasonable or not depends on the SP.

If there is  1 BGP customer, YOU, or even 1 to 10 customers, then it
sounds reasonable to me; even downright cheap, when you consider
deploying a custom service may require additional training of support
staff, more required involvement of higher level network architects,
and  require additional review of future network changes.
And the don't know in advance how many times you will be calling in
about that BPG session,  and requiring assistance from an engineer
well-versed in BGP,  not just standard Frontline or 2nd level support
work.


> > > We pay what our providers think they can get away with.  Like most
> > > decisions, they're not based on any "technical logic", they're based on
> > Are you suggesting that you get worse service after you negotiate a
> > deal with a particular provider?
> To a certain extent, yes.  It has been my experience (from both the service
> provider and the customer point-of-view) that customers who aren't worth as
> much to a supplier don't get as much "love", because the cost of losing
> their business to a competitor is much less (or, in some cases, would be a
[snip]
An org that negotiated a lower price per service are not necessarily
"worth" less, because measurement of worth is complicated. Might
purchase more services, might require fewer support/"free consulting"
incidents,  caused by issues that have nothing in the service
provider's control, such as customer-owned router crashing; they might
have more associates that will listen to their recommendations about
who to buy service from..  too little love may get an influential "I
recommend against using this provider, because...."

Support SLA, Service SLA, and all other expectations should be part of
the negotiation; otherwise you run the risk that  your unstated
expectations will not be met,  because there may be unstated
tradeoff/benefits removed for offering the low price   that you did
not include in the negotiation.

If the amount proposed isn't worth the level of service, the provider
needs to disclose that upfront,  probably in the form of a
counteroffer

--
-JH