yeah, I do the client architecture for a Fortune 100 company, so I'm aware of the resources you mention. However, it's not my problem, so I tend to avoid those things unless forced to ;^>
We just outsourced our telecom/digital network to a major firm (who will remain nameless) but it's still mostly the same people, just with different ID cards to get into our data center. I heard them bitching about something, but knew I really didn't want to get in the middle of it.
Where in the valley are you? I spent 77 to 82 way up in Pacifica/Daly City when it was all really starting to hit and my Dad and my sister and her family live down in Palo Alto. I just spent several weeks out there at the end of May, beginning of June, first for the Gartner conference, but then had to return when my Mom passed away.
Kind of a hard way to go back to the old haunts. At least I got to spend one last perfect weekend with my folks.
Palo Alto. Every time I try to get out, it pulls me back in. I am a principle at a network operator (among many other things), and as a consequence am far more aware of the internals of telecom and backbone politics than most. Still, I think this is the worst thing to happen to the Internet since Akamai's DNS imploded, and in this particular case it is intentional.