[115817] in North American Network Operators' Group
Bandcon
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (keith tokash)
Thu Jul 9 19:31:58 2009
From: keith tokash <ktokash@hotmail.com>
To: <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 23:28:06 +0000
In-Reply-To: <FA93867B20DA7443865D20D005EDC82D021B2D@FEGCNMSEXMB02.ffe.foxeg.com>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
We've run our circuits pretty hot and not noticed anything that would indic=
ate a lack of shaping/policing. And while the flame war with the attrition=
guys was pretty funny (I'm a sucker for classics) I wouldn't really use th=
at as any type of barometer of ... well anything really. This email may be=
accurate=2C but I'll pretend I'm an engineer for a moment and ask for some=
thing to back up allegations before I believe them. Even with the internet=
's stellar reputation for accuracy via intuition.
---
Keith Tokash=2C CCIE #21236
Network blah blah blah=2C Myspace.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Wall [mailto:pauldotwall@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday=2C July 09=2C 2009 11:50 AM
To: Robin Rodriguez
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Bandcon
On Wed=2C Jul 8=2C 2009 at 11:52 AM=2C Robin
Rodriguez<rrodriguez@ifbyphone.com> wrote:
> I don't have any usage experience=2C but would be very interested from an=
yone
> who does as well. We have spoken with them about long-haul circuits (with
> small to no commit) and their prices are indeed incredible. The prices we
> heard were for Equinix to Equinix circuits (specifically CHI1 & CHI3 to D=
AL1
> & NJ2) they also quoted us great deals on resold IBX-link to get to IBX's
> that they don't have a physical presence in (they aren't in CHI3 for
> example). I do wonder how they can undercut everyone's price by such a
> margin. Were you seeing great quotes into non Equinix facilities?
Simple=2C they're oversubscribing their transport circuits and letting
users fight for
bandwidth. Basically what they're doing is buying a 10GE unprotected wavele=
ngth
from a carrier=2C dropping a switch on the ends=2C and loading up multiple =
customer
VLANs onto the circuit. There are no bandwidth controls=2C no
reservations=2C no traffic
engineering=2C nothing to keep and the circuit uncongested=2C and these
are unprotected
waves so they go down on a regular basis whenever their carrier does a
maintenance.
How they implement multi-point service is even scarier=2C they just slap al=
l your
locations into one big VLAN and let unknown unicast flooding and MAC
learning sort it
out. Most serious customers run screaming=2C I'm sure you can find some for=
mer
customers who can describe the horror in more detail off-list.
When things break=2C their support is nothing to write home about. They
often brag that they have a former Level3 engineer on payroll=2C
unfortunately he's nowhere to be found=2C and their suport people aren't
terribly sharp on those rare occasoions when they *do* answer the
phone or respond to e-mail. Like someone else pointed out=2C multi-day
outages aren't at all uncommon=2C so if you end up going with Bandcon=2C
make sure you have sufficient redundancy in place.
Since they can't really compete on quality=2C they compete instead on
price. Their sales force spams and cold-calls every website=2C ARIN=2C
peeringdb=2C etc on a regular basis=2C and can't take "no" for an answer.
The following exchange sums it up nicely (warning: foul language):
http://attrition.org/postal/z/034/0931.html
They are currently running a $2.50/mg transit promotion=2C which makes
me wonder how they're doing on their Level3 and Global Crossing
bandwidth commits and whether or not they're solvent.
Drive Slow=2C
Paul Wall
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