🚀 go-pugleaf

Thomas Dzubin <dzubint@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca> writes:


>Does anyone have a definitive list of how the various ISPs in BC or Vancouver 
>hook into the Internet?  Do any of them use BCnet for access?

	I don't. I don't even know who is a BCnet customer (other than the 
three Universities. I do have some non definitive information that I have
picked up over the years which I will toss out and let more knowledgable
people correct.
	For whichever providers are on BCnet, the CA*net links (which is 
how BCnet gets to the Internet) consist of a T3 from Vancouver to Seattle,
and Ubiquity like Ethernet over ATM links towards Eastern Canada (I believe
2 as with the old T1 links, but may be wrong). I have never heard a public
answer on what the CIRs on those links are. In any case, CA*net has 2 more 
T3s to the US in Eastern Canada (one in Toronto and one in Montreal), and
in theory (and probably in practice, the routing gods willing) a BCnet site
can use all of these. 
	Mindlink (since you mentioned them), used to be a BCnet Ubiquity
connected customer. Some time in the past, they changed to a Ubiquity 
connected BC Tel ACC customer. I believe that the current Ubiquity Internet
connection is a T3 to MCI in San Fransisco, and I am somewhat suprised that
you report slow response. Is it possible that the limitation is between you
and Mindlink rather than Mindlnk and the net? Note that the US backbone 
appears to have been in sad shape for at least some of this week (the jibe
about moving to BCnet in the original post was tongue in cheek), and that 
may be more of the problem. BCnet was experienceing %25 to %40 packet loss
to US destinations either this week or last week (weeks tend to blur together
for me :-) ).
	That said, as Sam pointed out in his response, Mindlink has been 
bought by Istar and like Sam I expect they will move to the Istar backbone
(which is reputed to also be T3) when the current Ubiquity contract is up
(but that is just speculation on my part). Some of the local providers are
on Istar now (Wimsey is for sure, and in fact has also been bought by IStar),
and from something Curt posted I believe that Portal is a current Istar
customer as well. In addition Cyberstore has or at least had a T1 link
to Seattle (that is old information, and they may have upgraded), Insinc 
had another T1 and Frame relay links around (and since their buyout by
Sprint, things may have changed). There are probably a few more wholesalers
around (presumably with customers) UUnet Canada for instance. I don't know
who Internet Direct buys bandwidth from, they may have their own link to 
somewhere, and I think (from a traceroute) that Internet Express is a 
BCnet customer. One way to find out is to do a traceroute to a machine at
the ISP. It is usually clear from the upline router name which wholesaler
they are getting bandwidth from (discovering the size of the pipes is of 
course more of a problem).
	
>In my former job, we had a direct fiber link to the BCnet router in Harbour
>Center and my dial-in router sure seemed fast.  I'm currently dialing into
>Mindlink with the same client hardware and things are as slow as molasses in
>comparison at all times of day.  ...oh well...

	What is the speed of the link between your equipment and Mindlink?
If you had a direct ethernet connection to the BCnet router, but your router
is now connected via a T1 for instance to Mindlink, then the T1 can be the 
bottleneck that is making the same equipment seem slower. The advantage on
being in Harbour Center is that (assuming you can make a deal with BCnet)
you can get a fast connection without crippling cost (since it is a private
run within the building and not subject to tarrif as almost any inter 
building link is).  I expect that Stuart from Wimsey will jump in and convince
you that a T1 is faster than an Ethernet over ATM connection anyway :-)