[c-nsp] T3 or Ethernet delivery?

[Ian MacKinnon]

Hi Seth,

I think the world is moving to ethernet for what traditionally was a leased line, so you are only going to see more of it.

Don't forget in your cost calculations the CPE line card, compare the cost of a router (or switch) with a spare Ethernet port and one with a 2Meg serial card.
Also don't forget the cost of spares for each and every different serial card you need.

Yes, you are right you will see traffic blackholed, the interface is up/up, but there is no end to end connectivity.

Ian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net [mailto:cisco-nsp-
> bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Seth Mattinen
> Sent: 08 April 2009 08:15
> To: cisco-nsp
> Subject: [c-nsp] T3 or Ethernet delivery?
>
> One of my carriers has given me a choice for a new circuit delivery: T3
> or Ethernet. My outside world circuit experience is all non-Ethernet,
> so
> I have a few questions the sales group wasn't able to answer. I'd love
> to hear some real world experience. The cost difference between the two
> is not significant enough to be the sole deciding factor and I'm not
> using pure-Ethernet platforms so it's just a matter of adding the right
> interface card.
>
> How do you detect a "down" condition on Ethernet? My experience is that
> the interface could be up/up because Ethernet doesn't know about
> anything further down the line and ends up throwing packets into a
> magical black hole. Or worse, secret packet loss.
>
> Can you even troubleshoot Ethernet? Normally if I'm seeing something
> like out of frame errors or AIS, I can say "hey, there's a problem and
> it's X". It scares me to think of opening trouble tickets as "it's
> broken and I can't really tell you why".
>
> With a T3 I can be fairly certain that if there aren't any alarms that
> my end is happily talking to the other end. How does one accomplish the
> same with Ethernet? A periodic "ping" seems rather ambiguous as a
> health
> check.
>
> Since this is an outside world connection (i.e. I'm not in a colo) the
> slightly lower cost and convenience factor of Ethernet doesn't override
> my desire to stick with a T3 for its management properties and the
> sleeping good at night feeling I get knowing there are no alarms. My
> gut
> tells me to stick with it even though Ethernet delivery is what all the
> cool kids are doing these days, so any insight is appreciated. Thanks!
>
> ~Seth
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