Definition of Tier-1

Fri Jun 8 18:10:01 UTC 2001

On Fri, Jun 08, 2001 at 11:24:25AM -0400, RJ Atkinson wrote:
> 
> At 17:43 07/06/01, J.D. Falk wrote:
> >        Breaking down?  It used to be that anyone connected directly
> >        to an exchange point was tier one, and the tiers are pretty
> >        obvious beyond that.  Now that everyone's at the exchanges,
> >        "tier one" is simply a marketing term.
> 
>         Curious.  I've never heard that definition of Tier-1 before.
> The common definition is "doesn't pay any other ISP to exchange routes
> and traffic", or so I've thought for the past decade.
> 
> Ran

	If you have an ISP which is diversely connected to all other(?)
tier-1 providers, and has a peering relationship such that the other
tier-1s only announce the ISP's routes to their customers, then it would seem
the ISP is from a technical standpoint a tier-1 provider.
	IMO as an engineer and not a marketeer, who pays who should not have
bearing on that definition, though I agree that the "doesn't pay" definition
is the one I am familiar with.

	Austin