Nelnet.org

My workday centers around networks. I design networks and then install them. I program the equipment that runs the networks. I monitor the networks in an effort to prevent outages and respond to outages when they occur. I could describe myself as a "Network Administrator", "Network Engineer", or "Network Analyst", but I prefer to simplify the title and call myself a "Network Nerd".

I currently work for a CLEC that is trying to roll out combined Voice and Data over DSL. We are encountering a number of obstacles and have been able to turn up only a hand full of VoDSL customers. We are having to rely on more traditional circuit-switched methods of delivery for our income.

My job at the company has consisted of building an ISP for the data portion of our service offering. I've built the ISP from the ground up having only the existing infrastructure of the CLEC as a head start. I used my skills and techniques that I developed at my earlier positions such as my previous job described below. I've also actively participated in the refinement of our Voice of DSL offering. This has consisted mostly of tweaking the configuration of our ATM network which is the actual transport protocol for the data and voice.

Previously (not so long ago) I worked in a combination packet-switched and circuit-switched network. The company that I worked for called itself "a digital communications company". We were at the same time an ISP, CLEC, and aspiring international long-distance company. I ran the networks and network equipment for all these different faces of the company.

We maintained three POPs. The Seattle POP was already well established when I came to the company. I participated in the construction of our Portland POP and I lead the installation of our Los Angeles POP. Our "backbone" in as much as we had one was the IP network connecting our Pops We had multiple T1's connecting Portland and Seattle and one each connecting Seattle and Portland to Los Angeles. We used Cisco 7206VXR's as our core routers with Cisco 25xx and 26xx at our business office sites.

Our Seattle and Portland POPS focused on our Internet business. I designed each POP to be autonomous. They each had independent upstream bandwidth to multiple providers and local servers. Under normal conditions, the POPS provided redundancy and additional upstreams to each other. In the event that the POPS should be cut off from each other, they could each continue to provide most services without interruption. They also had internal redundancy in the form of redundant servers and dual LANs. The ISP services that we provided were dialup, email, web hosting, frame relay and DSL.

The Seattle POP was the location for our CLEC business. We had a Class-4 tandem with SS7/ISUP interconnects to GTE. We were using the interconnects to create our own PRI for the ISP dialup.

Los Angeles was the base for our most ambitious project. We launched long-distance routes to Asia and an IP Clearinghouse. The overseas routes used voice-compression with equipment such as NuEra and Cirilium. The clearinghouse was a location where VoIP companies could terminate their traffic onto the PSTN or overseas. In addition to the compressed voice, we had a Class-4 tandem with traditional circuit-switched circuits to route providers and some customers. We also used the switch for CDR collection.

I began my ISP life as a Unix Administrator and I am still very close to UNIX I have written my own custom scripts on UNIX (Linux and BSDi) for network fault detection using protocols such as SNMP. I've implemented the widely used MRTG utility for extensive monitoring of network usage and performance.

I find working with networks to somehow be aesthetically pleasing to me and I enjoy working with the variety of equipment and technologies. My hope is to continue this kind work in an environment where I can build a larger network across the United States and overseas.

What I Do