> Frame Relay is typically delivered over an unprotected local loop,
> just like DSL (although in some cases that unprotected loop may be in-
> building from a SONET node, which if you're lucky will have a
> protected path to the core). (If you're extra lucky, that protected
> path will actually run over different strands of fibre, and follow
> different fibre routes, and won't be two wavelengths provisioned on
> the same pair of glass.) The difference between frame-relay and DSL
> tends to be the contracted commitment by the supplier to fixing it
> when it breaks, a fact which you alluded to, snarkily, above.

1. Frame relay is IMHO a glorified version of ADSL - in actual fact it's 
commonly provisioned from the same place, using the same methodology / 
equipment and usually results in a not-much-different reliability.
(Antedotal)

2. My own personal experience of Frame Relay SLA, and more antedotal evidence, 
is that in practice it isn't worth the hefty premium paid for Frame Relay.

There is a considerable number of small and upcoming tech / internet 
businesses operated from home in areas where fibre is not an option even if 
the person would be willing to pay for ethernet over fibre (ATM, lets not go 
there).