Need advice on internet connectivity

[Peter C. Gorman]

Melody Fetske writes:

>Has anyone else on the east coast in Web4Lib experienced connectivity
>problems in last 4 weeks?

We have been experiencing severe routing problems to/from specific hosts
for the past month or two. In most cases, the problem has been traced to
the connection between ANS and Sprint. At first, it was very difficult to
get the ISPs to talk to each other (let alone work together), but by
exerting pressure from both ends of the connection we've been able to get
them to acknowledge and fix problems as they occur. Unfortunately, the
problems keep recurring, so when the routes go down we all pick up our
phones and get the ISPs to apply another bandaid to get us through that
week. Hopefully, it will eventually occur to some of these folks that 1)
there's a pattern here, and 2) it is in their interest to provide more than
temporary patches (do I sound frustrated?).

It has been helpful to work with the database vendors affected by this -
they carry some weight when they tell their ISP that the IPS's problems are
preventing their clients from reaching them.


PG
_______________________________
Peter C. Gorman
University of Wisconsin
General Library System
Automation Services
pcgorman at facstaff.wisc.edu
(608) 265-5291