[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by Samurai

About 3 hours downtime a month is well within 99.5% uptime. So that should be ok.

@Samurai, the downtime is not even 3 hours - One outage took an hour, and the second was about 10-15 min. The third was a fluctuation (read varying / inconsistent speeds), and not a complete outage. And I am giving these times because I get a mail triggered whenever we encounter an outage. Going by that the actual outage is about 75 minutes (max) in July!

(Fingers crossed, another two more days to go!!)

[SUV]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Never heard of them, that means they are not around here..

Here you go ....:: Railtel Corporation of India Ltd ::

[moralfibre]

We have a 4 mbps Reliance backup broadband link and we switched to Tata within 3 months. Reliance uptime was about 45% with no customer care. Since they are committing a 99.5% uptime on their SLA that should work I guess. We faced all sorts of issues starting from cable cuts to account deletion "on error" et al. I am never taking Reliance ever. The primary is VSNL 1:1 2048 kbps and it works very well. I don't know if you have that option or not.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by SUV

Here you go ....:: Railtel Corporation of India Ltd ::

I saw it yesterday, just having cable passing by doesn't mean they are here. They need to have an office around here. That way Airtel OFC (mobility) passes right in front of my office, but they are not willing to cut the fiber to give a connection.

Originally Posted by moralfibre

We have a 4 mbps Reliance backup broadband link and we switched to Tata within 3 months. Reliance uptime was about 45% with no customer care.

Was this connection with SLA or just general broadband connection?

[deepug]

Samurai

The below sums up our experience with Reliance

Pros
It's cheaper
You can bargain with them

Cons
1. Very bad SLA in terms of uptime
2. Support is absolutely not dependable
3. Will promise everything but you wont see anything in action
4. Any problem you have to get service you need to keep escalating and it's definitly not a good experience
5. You need to have a backup service provider if you need uptime guarantee

Hope this helps

Deepu

[Samurai]

Since the price of 25% cheaper than Airtel, we finally ended up signing up with Reliance. After a long wait they finally installed the router couple of days back.

But the hiccup started right away. According to the contract, they are supposed to give us 8 static IP addresses. So they gave us 8 IP addresses with a 29 bit subnet mask. That is 255.255.255.248 as the subnet mask.

I am not a network expert, so am I missing something here? A 29 bit mask allows a range of 8 IP addresses, and one IP gets taken by gateway address. The first (000) and last (111) in the range cannot be used. Which leaves me with only 5 usable addresses. But they are insisting this is the 8 IP they promised.

Is there some way I use the first (000) and last (111) in the range? Also, can the gateway be outside this mask range? I thought these were not possible.

Need some clarity here.

[NetfreakBombay]

How are you setting up your network?

If its like this:

1. Router has public IP
2. All internal PCs/Routers have private IPs
3. Router redirects some public IPs to internal PCs

In this config you have 7 usable IPs (One is consumed by router)

[Samurai]

All the static IPs are public. I would never put any of internal PCs on the WAN, they are behind the firewall in NAT configuration.

One IP is for the firewall (ISA Server), another for Corporate web, some more for customer demo sites which we don't mix with our web. Couple more for Vonage phones. Basically I have plans for all the 8 public IP addresses, and I had even given a network diagram of planned usage.

BTW, how are you saying 7 IPs can be used? Can xxx.xxx.xxx.176 or xxx.xxx.xxx.183 be used with 255.255.255.248 subnet mask?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Samurai

BTW, how are you saying 7 IPs can be used?

If my understanding of your network is right, then yes. Subnet mask is purely client-side thing (in this case) you can even use 255.255.255.0.

My understanding is:

1. ONLY 1 router in your office, that connects to reliance
2. 7 PCs/Servers/Routers with Public IP [maybe in addition to internal private IP]
3. Most other PCs will have internal IP through NAT (E.g. 192.168.33.X ).

Is that the case?

[sukiwa]

another case of delivery not as per customer expectations :-)

Well, technically Reliance has given a subnet of 8 IP addresses. But, usable IP addresses out of that subnet has not been revealed/discussed.

First (000) & Last (111) IP address in any subnet can't be assigned to any device. These IP addresses represent network id & broadsast id in a subnet.

So, if you need more than 6 usable public IP addresses, push Reliance for a subnet of 16 (subnet of 255.255.255.240). That would result in 14 usable public IP addresses.

@ NetfreakBombay: Don't agree with suggestions, doubt that it will create additional problems, mainly routing issues.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by sukiwa

First (000) & Last (111) IP address in any subnet can't be assigned to any device. These IP addresses represent network id & broadsast id in a subnet.

I don't think he needs a subnet on his premises.

All public facing interfaces can directly utilize the gateway provided by reliance. Little or not routing will be required in this case.

Will there be any problem in this scenario?

[sukiwa]

Off Topic:

@ NetfreakBombay: you seem to know more practical solutions & fully understand needs of 'Samurai' :-). My limited knowledge doesn't allow me to try your suggestions.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

If my understanding of your network is right, then yes. Subnet mask is purely client-side thing (in this case) you can even use 255.255.255.0.

You mean I can just use 255.255.255.240 or 28bit subnet mask instead of the 29bit mask they suggest, is that safe? They may have allocated other IPs in that range to others who may be visibile to me and mine visible to them as in a LAN. I guess I'll have to put stronger firewalls on all my servers. That way I'll get 7 IP instead 5 IP I have now. That is still less than 8 IPs I was promised.

[Samurai]

The range they have given me is 176-183. That means I can't use 28bit mask, 176 is all zeros. So I am aiming for 27bit mask or 255.255.255.224 as the subnet mask, the range is 160-191.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Samurai

You mean I can just use 255.255.255.240 or 28bit subnet mask instead of the 29bit mask they suggest, is that safe?.....

Two things:

1. Will it work ?
2. Is it safe ?


#1 is easy to verify, test ALL 8 IPs one by one (in isolation). E.g .set router's public IP to A.B.C.D then A.B.C.D+1, A.B.C.D+2 so on up to A.B.C.D+7.
Set subnet mask to 255.255.255.0 for testing.


#2 safety : Not as simple to see if there is an issue in the first place and to fix such issues.

E.g. regardless of netmask you set, others can set a broad netmask and they will be able to "See" your IP space. But would reliance allow that routing to happen or not, is something you will have to verify.