[VoiceOps] Level 3 platforms

[Nathan Anderson]

Hello all,

We are using an origination aggregator, and one of the underlying carriers that they use is Level 3.  I have seen "Vector" and "Viper" mentioned in the context of Level 3 both on their (the aggregator's) customer portal as well as seen those terms thrown about in e-mail exchanges we have had with them, but nobody that I've talked to over there so far can seem to tell me what exactly these terms mean.  From a brief Google search, I take it from a handful of posts I found in the VoiceOps archive that these are separate network "platforms" that apparently L3 runs concurrently?  (And it sounds like maybe Vector is Sonus-based, and Viper something else?)  But I've never found anybody offer an explanation of what the differences are, why you might be provisioned on one instead of the other, what the advantages and disadvantages are to each, etc., because any discussion of it already seems to assume some general knowledge on the part of the participants.  Some things I read suggest that perhaps Viper is being sunsetted and people are gradually being migrated over to Vector, but these posts are several years old, so you'd think that would have been accomplished by this point?

Since we aren't L3 customers directly, I can't ask them.  There isn't some kind of NDA restricting dissemination of this information, is there?

Thanks,

-- 
Nathan Anderson
First Step Internet, LLC
nathana at fsr.com