XO - a Tier 1 or not?

Joe Provo nanog-post at rsuc.gweep.net
Tue Jul 28 16:01:37 UTC 2009


On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 11:30:47AM -0400, Justin M. Streiner wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, Charles Mills wrote:
[snip]
> Do the best of my knowledge, no.  The definition of 'Tier 1' is something 
> of a moving target based on who you ask, but the most commonly stated 
> criteria I've seen over the years are:
> 1. The provider does not buy IP transit from anyone - all traffic is moved
>   on settlement-free public or private interconnects.  That's not to say
>   that the provider doesn't buy non-IP services (IRUs, lambdas, easements,
>   etc) from other providers on occasion.

Purchasing other services is sometimes seen as a settlement, generally
based upon which end of the transaction one is sitting.   

> 2. The provider lives in the default-free zone, which is pretty much a
>   re-statement of point 1.

Running without default (using full table, "default-free zone")  Has 
nothing to do with who you pay for what.

Discussion of "tiers" will inevitably reach topics of marketing & 
market dominance [eg "tier one in my home region" for many PTTs]
and generally are not any kind of useful technical metric.  In fact,
it can easily be argued that the networks which run without any form 
of contractually binding vector for their customer's traffic are more 
fragile than those who have one or more paths with dollars (and various 
levels of penalties) attached.  

Cheers!

Joe

-- 
             RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE




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