I was puzzled by Henry Blodget’s complaint about his Internet service:
Four years ago, when we were three people in a loading dock, we lived on the WiFi of another startup. For obvious reasons, our Internet often went down.
Then, three years ago, we raised money, which allowed us to buy “business class” Internet service from our cable company, Time Warner Cable. And that always went down.
Then, two years ago, we raised more money and got a 15MB connection from Verizon, keeping our “Business Class” cable modem as a back-up. Whether it was the modem or the network or the router or the weather, both services often went down.
Then, a year ago, after tearing our hair out over how slow the network was, we finally bit the bullet and ordered a 50MB direct fiber connection from Verizon, keeping the cable service as backup.
Getting our 50MB fiber connection took more than six months.
He then chronicles a tale of woe that’s familiar to any Internet user: “his Internet went out”, in his case for two hours in the middle of the morning news blitz.
My knowledge of backbone architecture isn’t what it was but the way I interpret his complaint is that he’s actually complaining about two distinct problems: a service problem and a support problem and the two functions are provided by different organizations. I also note that he never lists having a T-1 in his pilgrimage for good Internet connectivity which suggests to me he’s been sold a bill of goods at one point or another.
My experience has been that Verizon shares a characteristic with the other Baby Bells, presumably inherited from their mother: they don’t play nicely with others. That doesn’t mean that you can’t get good service and support but it does mean that you should try to limit the number of players. I wonder whether it is the case that in his (presumably New York) location fiber support is provided by a third party. Henry’s organization appear to be at that difficult stage: where its needs have exceeded a T-1 but aren’t enough (or his pockets aren’t deep enough) for a T-3.
It seems to me that he should be able to get several T-1s, all from Verizon, multiplex them together, get better performance than he saw from his DSL, and maintain single vendor responsibility.
Now to what puzzles me. Let’s assume his characterization of the problem (as he got it from his provider) was accurate. The Internet protocols were specifically designed to avoid that problem. They should have routed around the problem automatically unless it was a last kilometer problem in which case the explanation of the problem was bogus. Additionally, the problems that he’s describing appear to me to violate Verizon’s SLA (service level agreement). If his description is accurate he should be eligible for a significant refund from Verizon. Perhaps someone who’s more current than I would care to comment.
