Does everyone agree with this, it's the only response I have received
thus far (and according to the list, the sender works for a tier 1 provider).
[snip]
Tier 1: _Owns the fiber_, Multiple coast to coast paths of significant bandwidth
Tier 2: Reseller, Major connections (DS3/OC3) to multiple tier 1 providers.
Possibly: Major connections to one (1) tier 1 provider.
Tier 3: Everybody else.
Does everyone agree with this,
Nope. I wrote up a description of the tiers over a year ago but it's a
little dated now. You can read it at http://sidhe.memra.com/rough.txt but I
think that the tier 2 that I described has gotten fuzzier over time. I
still believe that the best indicator of a tier one provider is that their
network spans a continent. Of course there are other characteristics that
the top tier shares for the most part but the continent spanning seems to
be the best characteristic to hang a rule of thumb on.
Tier 1: _Owns the fiber_, Multiple coast to coast paths of significant
bandwidth
Tier 2: Reseller, Major connections (DS3/OC3) to multiple tier 1 providers.
Possibly: Major connections to one (1) tier 1 provider.
Tier 3: Everybody else.
This is describing telecomm companies, i.e. Worldcom, AT&T, et all are Tier
one, then the long distance resellers and then the LECs etc. But this has
nothing to do with the Internet so it's wrong.
Fiber is irrelevant to the Internet. IP flows and routers are all that matters.
P.S. no doubt some of you are about to point out that fiber is important
because we need it to run IP flows between routers. But the point is that
IP flows run over *ANYTHING* and the Internet is th collection of IP flows
and routers. IP flows are lines and routers are dots. Look familiar?
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 18:09:13 +0000
From: Danny <danny@UPT.ORG>
Subject: Re: tiers? (fwd)
To: nanog@merit.edu
Does everyone agree with this, it's the only response I have received
thus far (and according to the list, the sender works for a tier 1 provider).[snip]
Tier 1: _Owns the fiber_, Multiple coast to coast paths of significant bandwidth
May not use fiber for IP? May just lease it to others??
Tier 2: Reseller, Major connections (DS3/OC3) to multiple tier 1 providers.
Possibly: Major connections to one (1) tier 1 provider.
Is this an NSP?
Tier 3: Everybody else.
It seems that there are many levels here. National, Regional, State, local,
etc.
>
> Anyone care to take a stab at what places a provider in
> a given "tier-group"? Seems to me as though the large(st)
> providers are a bit harsher (naturally) than the smaller
> providers.
Dave Nordlund d-nordlund@ukans.edu
University of Kansas 913/864-0450
Computing Services FAX 913/864-0485
Lawrence, KS 66045 KANREN