[c-nsp] DS3 Nubie

[Jon Lewis]

On Sat, 25 Sep 2010, Christopher J. Wargaski wrote:

>   This year I installed a video WAN comprised of several 3845 routers
> with the NM-1T3/E3 for point to point DS3s (that is all, nothing
> else). The 3845 routers list at $13,000 and the network module at
> $8,500. You should do yourself and your firm a favor and look at
> business class Ethernet. DS3s are so expensive and sometimes a major
> pain in the butt.
>
>   For business class Ethernet, you most major carriers can offer you
> something. Typically, fiber is pulled to your NetPOP and a switch is
> installed, your hand-off is a switch port. The downside is the cost of
> delivering fiber to your building which can often be quite prohibitive
> unless you can amortize that cost over a number of years.
> (Unfortunately, that may not be possible since the deliverable may not
> be considered a product to your accounting department.)

There are other downsides [to metro ethernet] to consider.  Using ethernet 
for long haul, your devices at each end are no longer directly connected, 
but will have a network (the provider's ethernet switches) between them. 
Failures in "the network" will cause your ends to lose contact with each 
other, while their interfaces remain up/up.

Depending on the speed provisioned by the provider, and the speed of your 
networks, you can run into bursting/packet drops issues when your 
1000baseT traffic hits the 10mbit or 100mbit metro-E.

Also, because your packets are flowing over the provider's switched 
network, they typically ride a specific VLAN.  If (no, when) the provider 
screws up and puts another customer in the same VLAN, very strange things 
will happen, particularly if you're both using the same RFC1918 IPs. 
This is something you generally don't have to worry about with private 
lines.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Jon Lewis, MCP :)           |  I route
  Senior Network Engineer     |  therefore you are
  Atlantic Net                |
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