[olug] Comments on Qwest as a commercial ISP

[Jeff Hinrichs - DM&T]

On 11/24/06, Christopher Cashell <topher-olug at zyp.org> wrote:
> At Thu, 23 Nov 06, Unidentified Flying Banana Jeff Hinrichs - DM&T, said:
> > We are considering switching our data T1/DS1 at work from Sprint to
> > Qwest.  While I've been pleased with the technical support from
> > Sprint, the Qwest offer is low enough to be of serious consideration.
> > (675 vs 550)
> >
> > Does anyone have anything positive/negative to say about Qwest in this regard?
>
> We use Qwest for one of our Internet uplinks at work, along with an MPLS
> connection for a remote site.
>
> My generally feeling with them has been, and continues to be, they're
> mostly a pain in the ass to deal with, and frequently a pain in the ass
> to get new services setup.  However, once you've gone through that,
> they're relatively trouble free and as stable and reliable as anything
> else I've found.
>
> > Does anyone have multiple T1's or better with qwest? Fractional DS3?
>
> We recently upgraded from multiple bonded T1's to an Ethernet drop.
>
> > Part of the deal is an Adtran router, specifically a 3200 -- any comments?
>
> My only experience with Adtran is with a MUX.  Never used one of their
> routers.  A quick glance for this one shows:
>
>   "The NetVanta 3200 is an access router designed for cost-effective
>   Internet access, corporate Frame Relay, point-to-point connectivity,
>   and Virtual Private Networking (VPN) for applications requiring
>   bandwidth from 56k to dual-T1s. Residing in a standalone desktop
>   chassis with a plastics enclosure, the NetVanta 3200 is a single
>   platform that offers one interface slot and one 10/100Base-T Ethernet
>   LAN port. The modular NetVanta 3200 will house a variety of Network
>   Interface Modules (NIMs) and includes a Stateful Inspection Firewall,
>   QoS for delay sensitive traffic like VoIP, NAT and DHCP, and all
>   managed with a familiar Command Line Interface (CLI)."
>
> Is it a freebie, or leased with the line?  Are they providing full
> support for it (hardware, software, and configuration?), or is that an
> additional charge?  If they are providing the support, does it match up
> to your requirements as far as replacement/repair time, etc?  Does it
> support any specific features you might need (VPN, firewall, etc), and
> will it support what you need in the future?
The 3200 is part of the "special package" and leased with the line.

They, actually Adtran will be supplying the support and updates for
the router over the lifetime of the lease.

Repair is a bit of a problem since they support next day hardware
replacement.  I need to explore that further as I expect it is "next
business day".  They don't have any physical replacement units locally
and it will have to be shipped.  I'd be happier with a 4 hour
response.  We're not Amazon but the web side of the business is steady
and growing and unavailability hurts customer relations and
perception.

> Do you currently have hardware that could be put into use for the new
> connection?  Are you planning on purchasing hardware for this?  Do you
> have any idea what your bandwidth and routing requirements will be in a
> years time, two years time, three years time, and five years time (yes,
> I know that can be almost impossible to know for sure, but a best guess
> is almost necessary if you are planning hardware).
Hardware yes.  We have our own firewall and vpn solutions.

Bandwidth - yes I monitor that on a monthly basis.  I estimate that
we're about 8-16 months from needing more than a T1.  Their Dual T1
goes for ~1300/month.  I am investigating the idea of dedicating the
DMZ to the T1 at that point and potentially getting a cheaper cox
business connection to handle internally generated user traffic.

> I note that this particular router is limited to dual T1's, so that
> would be your bandwidth limit with this router.  If you had a need to
> increase beyond that, you'd be forced to change hardware.
That doesn't appear to be a problem in the near future.  However,
neither the 3200 or Qwest supports IPv6.  While we don't have
immediate plans for migration to IPv6, I was planning on starting to
experiment with it in the 2007-2008 time frame.

In fact, Qwest has told me that while they have some government
projects going on with IPv6 they currently don't have a date or a even
a plan to roll it out to their non-governmental customers.  That makes
me nervous as it could mean that we'd have to switch ISPs to get IPv6
in house.  Now I know that IPv6 roll out speed has been slow, however
it is moving faster than our change to the metric system and at some
point its going to hit critical mass.  I'd prefer that we were there
slightly before critical mass adoption.

> Lastly, the experience of you and the rest of the technical staff should
> be considered.  If you guys have no experience with this router, make
> sure you plan in plenty of extra time to familiarize yourself with it
> and get it configured.
That is true.  We don't have experience with Adtran equipment.
However I don't plan on using any of the built in features.  My
experience is that we are better served by using our own firewall/dmz
and vpn software on other dedicated equipment.  It's pretty much all
open source and it gives us more configurability that what normally
comes with a router.  Generally the router is just responsible for
delivering packets and simple blocking of private IP space packets
(192.168.x.x and 10.x.x.x) to stop spoofing and unwanted leakage.


> > Jeff Hinrichs
>
> --
> | Christopher
> +------------------------------------------------+
> | Here I stand.  I can do no other.              |
> +------------------------------------------------+
>
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-- 
Jeff Hinrichs