Relate it to the other disjoint service that uses their phone line - long distance. Lets say the client has Sprint as their long distance carrier and Qwest as their local provider. If all of a sudden they can't make long distance calls because the phone line doesn't work calling Sprint won't help. Or another variation, this time on your car and road analogy. The buy a cruise from ABC Cruise company. The cruise departs from Los Angeles and they are responsible for getting themselves to Los Angeles before the ship leaves. They book a flight on NWA to get to LA the day they sail. (It may even have been facilitated by ABC Cruise) When the time to fly comes the mechanics are on strike and the flight is cancelled. They complain to ABC Cruise but they can't do anything because they aren't NWA and are not responsible for getting them the LA. (It says so in the contract.) They would like to help, and maybe they do calling another airline or something, but in reality its out of their hands. I don't think either of these will help ;-) But I figured I'd try. Jack On Friday 01 December 2000 17:44, you wrote: > Been running into this lately, so I thought I would ask the collective > knowledge of the LUG this question: > > How do you explain to people the difference between a Telco and an ISP? > > The people are totally newbies and very, very non-techincal. > > The situation I am in is a client lost their DSL service from USWest. After > days of calling and hours on the phone with Qwest I was told that they are > beyond the 19,000 foot mark. > > Qwest says they should have never gotten DSL in the first place. Qwest will > not, no matter what put DSL down that circuit. Qwest has not explaination > on how they got DSL in the first place. > > Anyways, this client is very upset. They keep calling us and asking us to > "fix the problem". > > I have tried (very patiently) to explain Real Time is an ISP, we provide > Internet access. Qwest is a telco, they provide the physical connectivity. > > It just doesn't sink in. > > I have tried this analogy. Real Time is an automotive dealer, we sell cars. > Qwest is like MNDOT, they build roads. > > You (the client) have bought a speedy but very safe car (linux). It comes > with an airbag (ipchains) for safety, etc.. You got the car, but there is > no roads to drive on. > > It didn't sink in. > > So, how can you explain to the client that when the physical link is down, > no matter how bad you want to fix it from them, Qwest must be involved and > they must do the fix?