[AusNOG] Customer to customer connectivity on Telstra

[James Murphy]

I'm going mad trying to sift my way through all the possible Telstra products to work out exactly what is required (and if it's even possible) for two Telstra customers to connect over their existing Telstra connections (basically a new VLAN on each end) - like Megaport. Or: if its possible more than one Telstra account to be represented on the one physical connection (ie a provider manages and pays for the physical access, and one or more customers can order a service that is delivered to that physical access)

The particular use case our business has is we sell a hosted contact centre product that is delivered direct to our customers over private links. Our DC/racks connect to theirs. To date, we've used Megaport which is fantastic and we've ordered services from one of our providers that they just add on to our 10G trunk which we on-charge to the customer. The customer has a new cross-connect delivered into their rack.

We now have this scenario: some customers insist on using Telstra services and/or they have an existing Telstra network/connection they want us to connect to. There could be a variety of reasons why they need to use Telstra, some of which I assume could be tied to the fact they have to have the service appear on their Telstra account/paid for by them, or it could be that they want the reliability of Telstra.

Without understanding why it needs to be Telstra (that's higher level than the technical level I sit at), and knowing that we can become a Telstra Wholesale provider if it's all about the reliability of Telstra: 

- Is there a way that a customer can have their Telstra services (ie a SIP services) delivered to our rack without us having to have a second cross-connect put into our rack? (which would then become a third, fourth, fifth with every new customer that has this requirement)
- Is there a way that two Telstra customers (us and our customer) can connect our networks over their existing Telstra infrastructure/links (even if it's only possible if both sides have a particular Telstra product, I'd be interested to know what that would need to be)
- Any other advice or suggestions?

After multiple meetings with people at Telstra and lots of research, I'm at a dead-end and have all but ruled it as something that's not possible. Given Telstra is so big and complex, I figure if there's anyone that might know if this is at all possible, it's going to be someone on this list.

Reply off list. If anyone is interested to know the responses I get, feel free to reach out.

Thanks