""Howard C. Berkowitz"" wrote in message ... > The tier concept is mostly marketing these days, although there is > some technical basis.
> A tier 1 provider never buys transit. It gets all its routes from > bilateral peering arrangements. It will have a 24/7 network > operations center, and a national or intercontinental transmission > network, either leased or physically operated, of at least DS-3 (more > likely OC-3 to OC-48 these days). Its non-provider customers, if it > has them, will usually be large enterprises only -- it's really a > wholesaler. while i agree wholeheartedly with a lot of the sentiment here (as opposed to most of the other people who are guessing at possible meanings behind the term), there is a problem you are facing when defining your terms. the problem is that everybody pays Sprint (at least according to Sprint), but the people who "might not pay Sprint, but shhh don't tell anyone" (aka AOL) probably pay Worldcom. Speaking of AOL, where do they fit? Tier 1, 2, or 3? They don't have enterprise IP transit customers... they aren't really a transit-AS.... but they are arguably larger than most ISP's that consider themselves Tier-1's. Same with MSN. so according to your definition, only Sprint is a Tier-1. I've heard that "only Worldcom is a Tier 1" argued as well. there is no correct defintion for these terms.. it's kind of like "globally scalable software solutions".... it doesn't mean anything. it's neither a marketing branding term, or a technical term (anymore). "Tier 1/2" is to "large ISP" as "Soft" is to "toilet paper". Nobody sells "Rough" toilet paper.... You could mathematically look at routing table data and see who is "more of the center of the Internet"... CAIDA and most Universities do this kind of research all the time. If this were the case: UUNet comes out way ahead... followed by Sprint, AOL, and other big guys. I prefer to think of it roughly: Worldcom, Sprint, Level-3, AT&T, C&W, NTT/Verio, and MFS are Tier-1's. AOL, Earthlink, etc are mostly "Dial Tier-2's", while Qwest, XO, and SBC are "DSL Tier-2's" and Adelphia, COX, and Comcast are "Cable Tier-2's". But there are also other important people that fit in both categories, or mirrored-size, but different name categories. MSN is kind of a "Dial/DSL Tier-2" + "Content Provider". Amazon, Google, eBay, and Yahoo! are definitely strictly "Content Providers", although Yahoo!Japan and SBC-Yahoo! provide some of that strange mix again. There are also "regional Tier-1/2's" like Reach, Bellsouth, Telia, Opentransit, Telstra, DTAG, China Telecom, GroupTelecom, etc... and spin-offs like that UUNet-Kenya regional "Tier-1/2" and others like "AT&T Canada"... or both regional *and* cable like Rogers or ShawFiber. Finally, there are what I like to refer to as wanna-be's, or have-been's.. these are companies like Cogent, SAVVIS, Broadwing, ELI (although ELI is more like a regional provider), ICG, RCN, Intermedia/Digex, Epoch, InterNAP.. etc. There are even some wanna-be Content Providers like he.net (or back in the day, even Exodus and Abovenet). The wanna-be's tend to pick up random customer bases -- Enterprises, SMB's, home users (some dial here and there, some DSL here and there, maybe throw some Cable in), and Internet users of all types. They are also more likely to not "own" a facility or come in from a remote POP as a Type-II telecommunications circuit. The most important provider for most business today is not any of the above types, surprisingly. It's the pen-ultimate Tier-1... the Exchange Point Provider. There has to be someplace where all these people meet to exchange traffic and connect with circuits... and in today's world... it's the Exchange Point. Anyone who is worth their weight in the IP world gets some metro circuits to the nearest Exchange Point, drops a cheap router in there, and connects to anyone they want (and changes providers at the drop of a new "intra-building" cross-connect, or even as simple as a router configuration change). But to most people, this is like buying from a discount broker or walking into the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and trading on the floor. Why pay discount prices, when you can get about 30-40 middle-men involved to each take an enormous cut? -dre Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=71564&t=71508 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
