Also Exascale with a small network and not sure who has the tails

When you say "tails" are you referring to the actual connection into the customer premises? I'm not aware of TalkTalk doing their own, they use Openreach EAD. Virgin Media and Colt will also install their own cables, and other providers can use these as well.

It's possible to buy a connection from an ISP that doesn't have presence in the part of the country you are in, so they will e.g. use TalkTalk to get the traffic from the exchange back to their network, and TalkTalk will use Openreach to get the traffic from the customer to the exchange. This is what's going to have the impact on fix times and service quality in my experience - if your provider have to raise a ticket with TalkTalk who then speak to Openreach to work out that there's a fibre break then this is going to take more time and introduce more opportunities for mistakes than if your provider own the equipment at the exchange where your EAD terminates, can do their own troubleshooting and can raise tickets to Openreach directly.

In reply to a post by techeasy:

Main priorities are actual time to fix (not the SLA, that's just money back),

A leased line SLA does cover fault fix times. Basically the more you pay, the better the fix time SLA - this can be as quick as 2 hrs but expect to pay big money for this. I would stick with the major providers such as Vodafone, BT, TalkTalk Business, SSE, Virgin etc rather than resellers because in the event of any major issue, I would prefer to deal direct with the CP rather than a reseller, ie cut out the middle man.

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Jun-20 16:46:13)

In reply to a post by jpm:

When you say "tails" are you referring to the actual connection into the customer premises? I'm not aware of TalkTalk doing their own, they use Openreach EAD. Virgin Media and Colt will also install their own cables, and other providers can use these as well.

It's possible to buy a connection from an ISP that doesn't have presence in the part of the country you are in, so they will e.g. use TalkTalk to get the traffic from the exchange back to their network, and TalkTalk will use Openreach to get the traffic from the customer to the exchange. This is what's going to have the impact on fix times and service quality in my experience - if your provider have to raise a ticket with TalkTalk who then speak to Openreach to work out that there's a fibre break then this is going to take more time and introduce more opportunities for mistakes than if your provider own the equipment at the exchange where your EAD terminates, can do their own troubleshooting and can raise tickets to Openreach directly.

Yes I was saying that. TT claimed they had fibre in the building and I think I've heard they do have tails, but maybe it was just BT or Virgin which already have fibre in the building. Colt are miles away, Vodafone I think are 50 meters away.
You hit on precisely my concern re tickets, but we've had bad experience with BT and Virgin in the past, in particular Virgin on another line where they passed us from pillar to post just to make a simple change to the router. It's another reason I want to go wires only, we can do the routing ourselves.

How do I work out who actually has equipment in the exchange? It's Rochdale LCROC if that helps.

In reply to a post by Highland76:

In reply to a post by techeasy:

Main priorities are actual time to fix (not the SLA, that's just money back),

A leased line SLA does cover fault fix times. Basically the more you pay, the better the fix time SLA - this can be as quick as 2 hrs but expect to pay big money for this.

SLA is all very nice but it's not going to cost them massively if they miss it by a few hours. And not everything is covered by an SLA. The question is how long do they ACTUALLY take to fix things, based on experience?

I know it can sound repetitive but if you're doing something where uptime is critical then you should try and implement network resilience rather than trying to find the best SLA going. There's so much stuff that is out of the control of network operators and you might end up with your connection down and the network provider isn't allowed to access their infrastructure for safety reasons, or maybe it's a crime scene that can't be disturbed.

I think you have to ask providers if they have presence in the exchange that you're connecting to, or whether they are using a third party wholesale provider to reach you. They should be very open with answering this question, if they aren't then don't give them your business.

SSE are on-net at Rochdale, which matches what they have told you

https://ssetelecoms.com/about-sse/our-network/intera...

Obviously TalkTalk are as well, BT will most likely be there as well.

Edited by jpm (Wed 17-Jun-20 20:12:58)

In reply to a post by jpm:

I know it can sound repetitive but if you're doing something where uptime is critical then you should try and implement network resilience rather than trying to find the best SLA going.

Agreed. In this case I would suggest:

1. Keep the existing VM circuit as a backup
2. Take a leased line from someone who definitely does *not* use VM tails or backhaul. Get them to write this into the contract.
3. If possible, have the new circuit take a different route into the building than the VM one (this is likely if you use Openreach and they have their own duct)
4. Have a router with two WAN ports and does automatic failover. Or better: two routers with VRRP between them.

It *is* possible to get highly-redundant leased lines where they bring in two fibres via two entry points to two different exchanges - but they cost an arm and a leg. I'm sure you can cope with running on Virgin for a few hours once every few years.

You can't really choose your provider based on expected time to repair. *Any* of the providers *could* be hit with a major incident.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

2. Take a leased line from someone who definitely does *not* use VM tails or backhaul. Get them to write this into the contract.

You can't really choose your provider based on expected time to repair. *Any* of the providers *could* be hit with a major incident.

But are BT any better?

The other circuit in the building is a VM leased line which I sometimes help that company with as a favour, and they had it go down late on a Sunday evening. VM's 24/7 fault line wouldn't answer the phone or live chat til 8am the next morning, then 4hrs to actually fix it. And anytime they want even the slightest little change to the router settings, it's a few weeks effort just to get them to even acknowledge the request. At the end of the day they're not a big cutomer for VM so they don't care. I woudn't touch them myself.

Question is: do the other companies who use VM and BT tails have more clout to get things fixed immediately, or are they just passing the buck around when things go wrong because it's not their tail? And do they get tickets sorted quicker? I don't know because I have no experience. If anyone has specific experience of different providers I'd love to know.

The point is, keep the existing circuit from VM and take another circuit from a different provider. If they are independent then the chances of both failing at once are very slim.

In reply to a post by techeasy:

So lined a bunch of quotes, but I'm trying to shortlist them and I can't find much reports online re reliability and customer service. Main priorities are actual time to fix (not the SLA, that's just money back), and how easy they are to make changes.
Is it better to go for a big reliable (?) provider like GTT or Vodafone using a BT tail, maybe TalkTalk with their own tail, or a small local one like Spitfire I can prod into getting things done, or maybe a reseller like Amvia who might have more clout? If anyone has any real-life experience (for Ethernet services) with any of these I'd love to know.

SSE (own and Sky's backhaul, BT and Sky tails)
Vodafone (big network, BT tails)
GTT (big network, BT tails)
TalkTalk (own network and tails)
Daisy (resells CityFibre and TT)
Zen (small own network, BT tails)
Spitfire (ditto)
Amvia (reseller)

I can’t claim to know all of the lingo regarding leased lines. But IF tails means the final fibre going into a building Sky don’t have that and neither do TalkTalk. They’d both be using Openreach.

In reply to a post by techeasy:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

2. Take a leased line from someone who definitely does *not* use VM tails or backhaul. Get them to write this into the contract.

You can't really choose your provider based on expected time to repair. *Any* of the providers *could* be hit with a major incident.

But are BT any better?

Let’s use the right company names here so that people can answer your questions properly. If you mean Openreach then say Openreach, if you mean BT (the ISP) then say BT. Throughout your posts you’ve said BT.

Edited by deleted (Sat 20-Jun-20 12:43:29)