Now I am by no means a network admin, a hacker, or a unix demigod, but I got more skills and knowledge than most. I also know when somebody starts sucking all of a sudden.
After a substantial period (in internet terms) of being one of the best if not the best (PSI was pretty good you know) internet backbones, what has happened to the boys at uu? These days it looks like they are running with the pack or even at times trying to stay with the pack.
Anybody know what happened?
Too much demand?
Too much growth?
Poor management took over?
All the networking demigods went to work for somebody else or started up another .com?
Are you speaking of their internet performance? If so, then speaking on behalf of the RBOC from who UUnet buys a lot of its fast packet switching, I have always believed tha they scrimp on the bandwidth too much. The majority of times when UUNet calls a trouble in to us, I check the lines they’re complaining about and see that they’re provisioned for less than full T1 (sometimes much less). I always prove my point to the UUnet technician by temporarily bumping the allocation up to full T1, then asking him to call his customers & see what they say.
“They said everything’s great! What did you do?” Then I tell him that I bumped his interface up to full T1 and suggest that they put in for a new contract if they want it to stay that way.
They almost never do, and their customers continue to (rightfully) bitch & moan.
If you’re talking about general customer service, then I don’t have much to offer.
Yes, I was speaking of all of it. Speed and reliability. I guess the part that really brought it to my attention was the number of times my company’s connection goes down. Seems like every week its, we are down to the internet, Sam is calling uunet to see what they screwed up this time. Either that or they got a router that suddenly isn’t configured correct anymore, it just seems to be an endless list. Now back in the old days, say prior to July 99 these things were very rare. I was just wondering why the dramatic change of performance, and I think I got the answer. Once again it comes down to that great American motivation, try to squeeze a little more money out of what you got…
Don’t be too hard on UUNet. It’s very difficult for internet businesses to make money. Amazon.com has had zillions of orders, and they’ve never turned a profit.
But if UUnet is cutting service to save money, then I’d start shopping for a new provider now, because UUNet will probably be out of business in a year or two.