Yes, I’m out of state for my son’s wedding. And yes, I’m still dealing with the carrier mess for our new office. (Read Part 1 of this post if you need to catch up on things.) The carrier ended up confirming our worse fears….they are unable to provide fiber to our new office. One month from go-live. (Thank you very much!!) Their option, at first, was to deliver 8 T1 circuits bonded together for a throughput of 12 Mb. (Thanks, but no thanks.) But then they realized they don’t even have enough copper facilities in the area to support 8 T1’s. (I’m being very honest when I say that dealing with certain carriers is like dealing with five year old kids who haven’t learned to play well together.) All they can give us is 2 T1’s bonded and our voice PRI.

Not quite 20 Mb is it?

So we said no thanks to the double T1’s but yes to the PRI circuit. As for data, we are heading in a different direction. I have had two conversations already with the fixed wireless provider, going over our needs and getting a clear understanding of their technology. I will admit that I am impressed. They can give me a 20 Mb Internet link on a dedicated radio (not shared with other customers), with only two hops to their data center, then Gig fiber back to a major carrier. And they peer with two other carriers for redundancy. Very nice indeed!

And you know what’s even better? They are not 5 year old kids. So far it’s been a pleasure working with them. They know the problem I have and are moving quickly…a site survey is scheduled for tomorrow already. Sure, they want my companies monthly payment…that’s how business works. But they are also interested in providing a solution well suited for my company, one that balances performance with price. In other words, they are helping me solve my problem. That’s what good carriers do.

Now…back to my son’s wedding. Rehearsal dinner is tomorrow night (with some great BBQ afterwards), and the wedding is Saturday. I’m very excited for my son, and can’t wait to add a new daughter to my family!

As a Network Engineer I have to deal with a variety of carriers almost on a daily basis. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, TWtelecom, Level3, TelePacific….just to name a few. Some are a pleasure to work with…friendly staff, a sales team that’s on your side, technical support that actually knows what they are doing…you get the idea. Some are not so nice to work with. And then there are some that are just PAINFUL to work with. Such as today.

We are opening a new district office in a major city here in California, and we ordered a hi-speed fiber network connection this past Spring. Go-live is in October (as in next month). For four months the carrier has said that things are progressing normally, no problems. Until today. All of a sudden, they have encountered a “major construction problem”. They couldn’t figure this out until today? Does this mean no circuits at all? Or will there be a long delay? No answers as yet…wait until Monday they say. Just great. I’m on vacation next week…out of state…for my son’s wedding.

So, as a Network Engineer, what should you do? Plan out some options and quickly.  Which we did this afternoon…

• For data and Internet access: I found a local fixed wireless provider that can give us a high-speed Internet circuit, and get all of this installed in as little as two weeks. I’ll configure an IPsec tunnel to our Data Center…all is good.
• Voice: We can leave our current PRI voice circuit and router at our old location for now until all of this is straightened out, and just route the VoIP calls over the data network.
• Analogs lines (fax, etc): Vonage can deliver plain analog lines over the Internet, and I’ve used this before at some of our temporary job-sites. Or, perhaps now is a good time to test some of the e-fax providers. We have several options here.

Of course, none of this is ideal. But we should still be able to meet our deadline and not disrupt the scheduled move of staff and equipment. So, perhaps I can relax and enjoy my son’s wedding next week. Perhaps…