[geeks] Negotiating bandwidth advice?

[Patrick Giagnocavo 717-201-3366]

Can anyone here with experience in negotiating Internet bandwidth pricing email me privately or to this list, their tips and tricks?

I have a small place that is on-net with fiber, and we are negotiating pricing.  

Approximate pricing I am getting, including the fiber premises charges:

3mbps - $400 per mbps  (about $1200 per month)
10mbps - $170 per mbps (about $1700 per month)

This is for an ethernet handoff (full-duplex 10 or 100mbps ethernet port), 100% SLA, SONET ring, yada yada, plus all the IPs needed (with justification).  Note that we are talking bandwidth at the port, not ethernet bandwidth (i.e., there will not be a degradation as traffic goes over 70% utilization like there is in most ethernet LANs).

So far, it seems high - but the area I am in is 100% Verizon territory, so going with copper means downtime (I could not start with SDSL because Verizon sucks, for example:  even T1s and T3s go down in this area sometimes).

--Patrick