[asterisk-biz] Rant: Wannabe "carriers" please tell the truth or live up to expectations.

[Jean-Michel Hiver]

Script Head a écrit :

> If you're in the business of providing termination services (some at 
> incredibly low prices), please read this.
>
> I have dealt with many so called carriers over the last couple of 
> months, almost all of them are present on this list. I am always clear 
> about my calling patterns and expected volume.  Everyone wants the 
> minutes and always say "oh we can take all you can send" and always 
> lie about or underestimate your capacity. When I send 50 or more 
> channels, you choke. Some have choked at 20 channels, some even less. 
> You might have enough channels committed form your "upstream provider" 
> but you don't have enough bandwidth to accept the calls and send them 
> to your upstream. I am almost sure that the majority didn't do any 
> scalability testing.
>
> The points are:
>
> 1. If you're a reseller of a reseller with a 10+ domestic "carriers" 
> loaded in your LCR, you are not a quality provider.


I have been using phonext.com as a fallback.They clearly told me that 
they are a "Pure IP" based operator. While they are expensive, so far, 
quality, ASR and PDD has been excellent with them. Clearly, you get what 
you pay for.


> 2. If you do have Tier-1 upstreams, you shouldn't have a problem 
> revealing that information. If you have a problem doing that, you're 
> using bottom-of-the-barrel carriers.

I don't expect to walk in a store, pick up some stuff and ask "where do 
you buy those from?". This is no different.


> 3. If your entire infrastructure consits on a leased box on Cogent 
> bandwith "burstable to 100 mbit", you're not a qualitity provider. 
> Nobody in their right mind will let you burst from 1 mbit to 100 for 
> $59.95 per month.

Well, I have to agree on this. Personally, I have only 1Mbps but it is 
guaranteed and you actually can push half a million monthly minutes 
through it (using g.729) easily. That being said, some colo houses offer 
dedicated bandwith.


> 4. When someone asks you for a commitment of N number of channels, you 
> better damn have them or say straight out you can't do it.

Well... it depends how this is handled. A fast-busy signal isn't so bad. 
A call which waits forever until timing out sucks big time. But I agree 
with you that outright lying and deception is just plain wrong.


> I think it should be also a normal practice to make iptraf avaiable to 
> a potential customer so he can test the amount of bandwidth (and 
> burst) you have available.

That's the most ridiculous request I've heard in a great while. As if I 
was gonna let some untrusted stranger monitor and do stuff on *my* network.

Bloody hell, I barely allow my best business partners to do so - and 
only with a good reason - and even then I change all passwords 
afterwards. You did say you wanted quality didn't you?

Cheers,
Jean-Michel.

-- 
Jean-Michel Hiver - http://ykoz.net/
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