>> Is being a tier-1 now a good or bad sales argument when >> selling internet access ? > Its a great sales argument. That's why everyone claims to be > one. It just sounds SO good. And its not like the Peering > Police are going to enforce it. What does it mean in real > life? Nothing. Nada. An organization's SFI status is a > particularly poor criteria for choosing a transit > provider. There are so many better factors to use - support, > packet loss, price, latency, availability, provisioning speed > - you name it, its a better criteria than SFI status.
packet loss and latency to *where*? before replying, consider that most of a leaf's traffic is either to/from another leaf of a tier-1 to which they're (possibly indirectly) downstream, or to/from the tree of a tier-1 which peers with the tier-1 to which they're attached. if tier-n, where n > 1, is buying transit from tier-1s, which they have to do, then the price game seems to be pretty determined unless one likes to run at a loss or is cross- subsidizing from some other product line. all your bases are belong to us. :-) randy
