🚀 go-pugleaf

This is a common problem - many local ISPs only route traffic south. In
fact, any local ISP getting their backbone connectivity from Sprint,
Westel, Unitel, or MCI (to name a few) do this. Istar has a connection to
the Canadian CIX in Toronto, and is not too bad.

John Nemeth <jnemeth@cue.bc.ca> wrote in article
<50dg8k$mca@news.pinc.com>...
> In article <50bkc4$27v@harp.cs.ubc.ca> davem@cs.ubc.ca (Dave Martindale)
writes:
> >We're thinking of getting an account with a commercial ISP.  Most of
> >our packets will be exchanged with UBC and SFU, which I believe get
their
> >Internet connectivity via BCnet.  Thus, it would be useful if our chosen

This is important. You can obtain a commercial account via UBC's
Interchange service directly. Otherwise, Dowco, Internet Portal, Infomatch,
Infoserve,  Lynx, and Teleserve, are a few of the ISPs directly connected
to BCnet (I've probably left out a few lower mainland providers connected
to BCnet, apologies in advance).

> 
>      Yes.
> 
> >ISP had a BCnet connection (not necessarily as their only contact with
> >the outside world) so that these packets can stay in the local area.
> 
>      A few months BCTel Advanced Communication (ACC) and BCNet got
> together and created a connection point in Vancouver, so you may also
> wish to consider sites that get connectivity via ACC.

We now have full BGP peering between AC and ourselves, and are exchanging
local routes.

> 
> >I understand that some local ISPs get connectivity from various U.S.
> >carriers, and that packets have to travel either south or east into the
> 
>      Yes, or rather some Canadian carriers are subsidiaries of US
> ones, or have simply decided to connect into the US backbone instead
> of the Canadian one (this makes sense if your traffic isn't mainly
> regional).
> 
> >U.S. before returning to BCnet.  This seems sub-wonderful both for
> >round trip time and reliability reasons, so I'd like to avoid such ISPs.
> 
>     My connectivity is indirectly through ACC.  Prior to the above
> connection, the main problem that I had with reaching BCNet sites was
> due to BCNet technical problems (they went through a period where
> their equipment was overwhelmed until it was upgraded).

We had a bout with an underperforming Bay Networks core router for a brief
period. Outside of that, the network core (100 Mbps FDDI interconnect to
CA*net, 45 Mbps connections to the US) has performed admirably.

Michael Hrybyk
Manager, BCnet and UBCnet
822-1348