On Wed, Oct 10, 2007, Sean Figgins wrote: > > [adrian chadd] > >These topics however seem "altrustic" ; why would someone talk about what > >gives them an edge over their competitors? > > If nobody ever talked about the above topics, then we would not have an > Internet today. Despite what CxOs may think, the very essence of the > Internet is the free sharing of technology and ideas. Intellectual > Property means nothing to the Internet, which just sees it as a series > of 1s and 0s.
Because ten years ago things were still difficult and my experience with the network community was it was tight-knit and very cliquey. You weren't going to get far with a lack of clue and a lack of interest. Today's networking area is very very different from where I'm sitting. Networking can be learnt reasonably successful "from a book" and consultants are called in when things aren't quite working right or its time for an upgrade. You won't learn carrier type clue from a book but somehow people manage to get large-scale network management positions without needing to be a part of this tight knit community. I'm sure they've got different communities of their own. :) I've tried to get some of the netadmins/ops guys/girls out here in Western Australia to present on the stuff they're up to. They're all for telling us how they rolled out a VoIP network with "SS7" interconnects and call routing. Their management doesn't like the idea of sharing said clue with other potential competitors, so they stay tight lipped. > Not all companies will appeal to all customers. We need multiple > companies provide the service to the customers, as the customers all > want to connect to each other. It is in our best interest to ensure > that the end-to-end experience is as positive as possible, as even if > the problem is not on our network, our call center is still going to get > the call. How can we ensure that the customer's experience is as good > as possible? Well, we have to help the rest of the network providers > improve their network, which in turn causes us to improve our own. Pish. I don't believe that at all. You'll either be smart and roll out a large network to enough peering points with enough infrastructure under your control so you can choose cold or hot potato routing depending on the "clue" and "quality" of the target networks' network. Cluey guys will build networks assuming others can't build theirs and make sure their stuff "works better" regardless of how its done. > Competition is all about trying to make your customers happy. If you > are selling the best car in the world, it does the customer little good > if they can't even leave their driveway, as the roads are not any good. Argh. Car analogies. The discussion ends here. > Edge is ultimately all about the service you are willing to give the > customer to make them feel good about paying you. There really is no > other edge that matter. I used to work for a company that charged > $29.95 a month for 33.6 dial up service, and we took business away from > the $7.95 provider. Why? We made our customers feel more important. > We were open about the problems we had, and how we planned to fix them. > And, we always answered the phone when they called. Even when they > left and signed up for a year prepaid with the other guy, we knew they'd > be back in 2 months. > > > Don't try to make your network look better by talking down your > neighbors. It only makes you look bad in the long run. But if you don't talk to your neighbors at all and you're still experiencing positive growth , why would you? Or more importantly - how do you pitch something like NANOG in a light which makes the -business- people realise there is value again in sharing? Adrian
