Talking to Your Hardware Vendor

Your hardware vendor has an incentive to tell you all about the latest new technology. If, through the course of explaining a glitch with your frame relay data transfer service, the vendor rep can convert you to MPLS (see Chapter 14), the vendor can get what he or she wants, too — to sell you hardware for the transition.

Vendors tend to have more hands-on experience with new technologies and can give you an unbiased assessment of what works and fails in the world of telecom. Troubleshooting should always include your hardware vendor if your carrier suspects your hardware is involved in the problem.