Evaluating Tier 1 Internet providers

Tue Aug 27 23:22:32 UTC 2013

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 3:02 PM, Eric Louie <elouie at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Based on various conversation threads on Nanog I've come up with a few
> criteria for evaluating Tier 1 providers.  I'm open to add other criteria -
> what would you add to this list?

Billing issues such as:

attitude during a billing dispute

traceability and accountability (Which service is this 35 cent blah
fee attached to?)

zombie service rate (Bills showing up for long-ago cancelled products)

flexibility (I want you to send me two bills, each for half of that.
You can't? Why not?)

nickle and dime (There's a $100 monthly rental fee for that 50 foot
cat-5 cable!? Really!?)

Also, abuse desk knee-jerkiness. If someone reports a problem
originating from my system, how much leeway do I have to fix it before
you decide to fix it for me? If some knucklehead with a port-scanning
worm earns me a no-notice cut off, you and I will have words. At the
same time, I don't want to fund someone who would turn a blind eye.

> Seems like everyone offers 5 9's service, 45 ms coast-to-coast, 24x7
> customer support, 100/1Gbps/10Gbps with various DIR/CIR and burst rates.
> I'm shopping for new service and want to do better than choosing on
> reputation.  (or, is reputation also a criteria?)

Reputations are well earned and are certainly a factor. They're
heavily qualitative, though. I don't know that's it's practical or
useful to measure them.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004