Hi all, after I was aware of the thread, I was waiting a while to see how it would go.. a mixed bag, mostly cloudy! :)
Ok there's a few things in here, and how far in should I go on a mailing list.... Firstly, taking 3 non-trivially sized networks, running a mixture of technology, some of it old, some of it tangled up in ways long forgotten and integrating them is never going to be perfect, there will inevitably be some broken eggs as they say. Simon, you were unfortunate in getting a bit of a perfect storm here, and I was pretty open in how it came about - trying to shift Nx10G of capacity over a BB that was itself split over 5 parallel routes, and having some serious delays in turning up optical capacity to get to design capacity on an old DWDM platform that we broke when we stretched its legs.. some real hard work from the team with a game of "chess meets twister". Hands up, there were issues arising and they weren't short fixes, my genuine apologies for where we fell short :( Nick, maybe you want to drop me something offline as I'm not clear on the specific here. I know we missed your original expectation on having RTBH community support, that was definitely delayed by integration with staff tied up and trying to consolidate a heterogenous IP edge, but that was just BGP community support, so perhaps something else sparked your email.. Ben, all my vendor contracts renew for either 1 or 12mo periods depending on vendor and all have 30-90d notice periods, serving notice a week before the anniversary (so ~80d after the notice cutoff) is a bit late. You were pretty expletive from the outset, I don't use one liners saying my vendor is "a bit c**tish", but our guys still offered you openness to swap service if your needs had changed. To be fair you did threaten it would be "in our better interest" to cancel the contract or you'd publicly out us - so you are at least consistent. Mark, you had the opposite then, they asked how you were doing prior to renewal, can I chalk that up as a hint of sun in these clouds? Overall though, running a high speed network over 4 continents, 160+ PoPs, supporting carriers from the smallest to the largest, customer feedback is positive and things are built well with few chronic issues over the years. That said, there's always going to be shortcomings, and every integration is going to present unique challenges, but raise them, and reach out to friendly faces if needed... (note UKNOF isn't watched by our NOC tho, so direct contact is appreciated too! Neil, good to hear from you too, being away a lot I have missed our chats :) Cheers Stephen (Founder/President/Honorary support rep - IX Reach aka Console Network Solutions) On 1 September 2016 at 12:34, Mark Blackman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 1 Sep 2016, at 18:38, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Are there any other folks out there who were once satisfied IX Reach > customers but think it's gone down hill since acquisition by Console? > Wondering if it's just me or not! > > > > Nick > > I did have a curious email where my account manager said I had one day to > notify them of discontinuation of the service or I was signed up for > another year. > > - Mar > > >
