RE: Qwest Support

["Daniel Golding" <dgolding () sockeye com>]

Yeah. I got that part of it, and I don't disagree that many large carriers
have less than stellar support.

Some things to consider when looking at the support you get from a large
ISP...

- Most problems you will have are going to be circuit problems - i.e. "my
T-1 is down, AGAIN". Therefore, most carrier's support operations are built
around fixing Layer 1 problems. You give them the circuit ID, and then, in
theory, you get your circuit fixed.

- Routing problems occur, but most are global, across a carrier's entire
network, or regional, at a POP or POPs. There are many things that can cause
this - bad router code, misconfiguration, etc. In a properly designed
network, routing problems that impact a single user are rare.

- Resources to assist customers in diagnosing routing problems are scarce,
for a variety of reasons, some good, some very bad.  This is compounded by
the fact that the "hit rate" for customer routing problems is low. Most
times when a customer calls and says that their T-3 is down, it really is.
Most of the time when a customer calls and says they are having a BGP
problem, it's rarely originated by the carrier, and is usually a customer
misconfiguration or misunderstanding.

- Daniel Golding


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gregory Urban [mailto:urban () cs umbc edu]
> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 11:14 AM
> To: Daniel Golding; nanog () merit edu
> Subject: RE: Qwest Support
>
>
>
> You totally missed the point.  Had this been a real emergency, he
> would be
> unable to get resolution since Qwest was unable to dredge up a
> clue within
> their customer support machine.
>
> Greg U
>
> At 05:24 PM 4/4/2002, you wrote:
>
> > I suppose. Except it's not even certain you were having a problem of any
> > kind at all.
> >
> > Qwest's presence or absence from public IX's really has nothing
> to do with
> > your routes being announced. In fact, Qwest privately peers with all the
> > other large networks. While there are many peering sessions at the public
> > NAPs, most traffic is carried over private network
> interconnects, at least
> > domestically. Certain peering points in Europe (Linx), tend to
> run the other
> > way.
> >
> > In fact, if Qwest were publically peering with other networks,
> it might be a
> > reason why your routes through UUNet were being prefered - private peer
> > originated routes are almost always assigned higher local preferences in
> > carrier networks, then public peer originated routes.
> >
> > I'm not sure your annoyance with Qwest has any basis in their lack of
> > performance, as far as IP routing. BGP decision rules and other networks'
> > routing policies will govern which paths are used for your
> routes. Here is
> > an example...
> >
> > - Network X peers with UUNet in 8 locations. Network X also peers with
> > Qwest, lets say in 6 locations. For whatever reason, network X chooses
> > UUNet's routes to you over, Qwest's. This could be due to local routing
> > policy, dictating that 701 routes get a higher local pref. Or AS path
> > lengths could be the same, and the decision could be falling to something
> > like router ID. Whatever.
> >
> > - In general, all the UUNet peering will get treated the same by
> Network X's
> > routing policy. This won't always be the case, but let's say that none of
> > the peering links are congested, etc. So, a certain number of paths are
> > carried throughout Network X via iBGP. If UUNet's routes "won"
> at all those
> > peering points, you will not see any paths through Qwest on a
> single carrier
> > route server like Nitrous.
> >
> > - Route-views, and the like are different animals. They get ebgp multihop
> > views from many providers, so you will tend to see paths from
> many different
> > vantage points, and are more likely to see paths from both your
> upstreams.
> > ISPs get a heavy volume of calls every day. While Qwest may not have the
> > greatest customer service, it's not like you were actually down or had a
> > qwest originated routing issue. If that were the case, my
> sympathy would be
> > greater.
> >
> > - Daniel Golding
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-nanog () merit edu [mailto:owner-nanog () merit edu]On Behalf Of
> > Andy Dills
> > Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 5:43 PM
> > To: nanog () merit edu
> > Subject: Qwest Support
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Wow, Qwest support is indeed terrible.
> >
> > Turned up the DS3 today...the connectivity seems fine. I decided to check
> > a couple of routeservers (nitrous); all had my much-prepended UUnet
> > announcement, but NONE had my Qwest announcement. Not a huge deal, but
> > curious to me.  Is Qwest just not at the public peering points? When I
> > checked route-views.oregan-ix.net, I felt better, but yet annoyed. Even
> > with the prepends, most networks were announcing UUnet's path.
> >
> > So I decided to call them and ask...man what a mistake. The guy is like,
> > "Ok, hold on, let me get somebody from our IP noc." 10 minutes goes by,
> > and he comes back with "Couldn't get anybody in the IP noc, let me try to
> > get somebody in your install group" (being that I turned up the DS3
> > today). Comes back another 10 minutes later with "Well, I left a message
> > for them, but there isn't much I can do. Nobody seems to be answering
> > their phone. If somebody doesn't call you back within 30 minutes, here's
> > a number to call..."
> >
> > So what if my routes were actually hosed? I'd just be screwed
> because they
> > can't get anybody at the IP noc?
> >
> > I wait. Nobody calls back within 30 minutes. I call the number
> he gave me.
> > Busy. You gotta be kidding me.
> >
> > So I call the main number again, talk to somebody different. She has me
> > hold, and then brings some guy on the line "who can help me". I start to
> > talk about route servers, and he's immediately like "Woah, this is a BGP
> > problem...I can't help you. Let me try to get somebody from the IP noc."
> >
> > So, I wait on hold for about 15 minutes, only to be given dial tone.
> >
> > Please tell me it isn't always THIS bad?
> >
> > Andy
> >
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