What does support look like when a carrier manages the network?

Worth setting out fairly, because a carrier managed network is a legitimate product and plenty of businesses are content with one. These are the structural differences, and you should check each of them against whatever you are being offered rather than taking our word for it.

• Who answers. A queue staffed by whoever is available, versus a small team who have been to your office. Neither is inherently better at firewalls. One of them knows that the rule you are asking about is for the imaging machine in room three.
• Context. This is the one that costs the most time. Explaining your environment from scratch on every call, to a different person, adds more delay in practice than the queue does. It also means nobody is in a position to notice that the thing you are asking for this week contradicts what was set up last month.
• Onsite. Carriers will generally roll a truck for their circuit. Whether anyone will come and look at a switch, trace a cable, or help the office manager with a device that will not join the network is a separate question, and the answer is frequently no. Ask it directly.
• Scope boundaries. The network is managed. Your computers, your Microsoft 365, your email, your backup, your printers and your line of business software are not. When something sits on the boundary, and a surprising amount does, you are the one holding both ends.
• Escalation. Ask what happens when the first answer is wrong, how you escalate, and whether there is anyone you can call by name.

What is genuinely good about the carrier model, because this should be said: the monitoring is real and runs around the clock, the hardware is enterprise grade, patching gets done without you thinking about it, and there is one bill. For a business whose network rarely changes, that is a reasonable package and the criticisms above may never affect you.

What we would actually suggest, rather than a straight either or. Plenty of businesses keep their circuit with their provider, which is where the carrier genuinely belongs, and have the network equipment and everything behind it managed by somebody local. You get the circuit SLA from the people who own the fiber and a response time on everything else from people who know your building. There is an article in this knowledge base about working alongside a provider you have already signed with.