Fully Meshed Network 3

[30362]

I currently have 4 locations connected via point-to-point circuits in a hub/spoke topology, since most of these circuits are expiring soon I am looking at a fully meshed FR network and was wondering if there were any best practices out there or "gotchas" to be aware of when seeking out providers...

Thanks in advance.

 

[robertjo24]

Since you are only connecting four locations via FR, you will not get a price break or “Large Customer” status treatment from a given carrier.
I would look at these items:
1) If a given carrier is the incumbent LEC for each site, they will (should) have more incentive to provide a better response to issues at each site. (i.e. XYZ Telecomm is the local carrier at all sites)
2) If you are dealing with several small (mom & pop) LEC’s, contracting the FR through a larger carrier may provide more “pull” in the event of service outages.
3) Ask the carriers to provide outage statistics, including MTR (Mean Time to Repair), and MTF (Mean Time Between Failure) statistics.
4) Ask for references, and call them.

It has been our experience that you often get what you pay for.

 

[tetaguila]

mr robertjo,
can you expound what is mtr and mtf in details, we are planning to use fr also in our 6 branches instead of using leaseline pointtopoint....

tnx in advance

 

[robertjo24]

MTR (Mean Time to Repair): This is the time it takes the carrier to restore service to a given citrcuit upon an outage. They will likely give this information as an average over a given time period. Be careful to question if the MTR clock continues to count up when thay pass a ticket off to a local LEC for action. We had a carrier stae an MTR on one circuit as 4 hours, when it was out of service for two days. They stopped the clock when they passed the trouble down to the LEC for site issues. As long as the circuit is down, whether it is a carrier issue or LEC issue, the MTR clock should run. The only time the clock should stop is if the issue is resolved, or the carrier parks the ticket awaiting customer (you) action.

MTF (Mean Time between Failures): This is an average of time between failures of major circuits, or one particular circuit. I would ask about the carrier's major switches, redundant paths, etc. An MTR of one hour is great, but not if a circuit fails once a week.

I hope this helps.

 

[tetaguila]

thahnx robertjo...well explained!!