Talk:Tier 1 network

"Teleglobe/VSNL AS6453 does not buy transit from 1239. Easily verifiable in the route maps. Changed the label accordingly" Triviacontributor 05:10, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:VSNL_International_Canada VSNL's article seems to describe it as a Tier1 ISP. Either that article or this needs fixing.

The article title should be "Tier 1 ISPs". A tier one carrier, meaning a telecom carrier of voice services is something different and is definable via FCC rules. (Unknown Commenter)

"This is what happened between Cogent and Level 3 recently." --This needs to be replaced with the date of the occurance and a brief explanation. I know Wikipedia tries to be timely but "recently" ages fast. I am leaving this comment as I am not the one qualified to write about this. Ray Trygstad 14:27, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

this appears to have been fixed. Good call. Jasongetsdown 17:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Should be locked and/or have an accuracy dispute disclaimer: In light of the persistent vandalism (some of it traceable to Cogent, and I don't use the term vandalism lightly), shouldn't this article be appropriately marked with a disclaimer that its accuracy is in dispute and locked so that non-registered users can't edit? Same comment has already been made in talk for Cogent Communications —Ke4djt @ 1358, 04 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed merge from List of tier 1 internet service providers

The companion article is just a short list, and really has no meaning outside the context of the main article, and isn't referenced outside the main article. -- Randal L. Schwartz 16:56, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

just because you put an article on wikipedia doesn't mean the information is true. If you ask 100 people what a Tier 1 ISP is you'll get 10+ different answers...there is no common definition. Just because you don't own the fiber in the ground doesn't mean you don't privately peer with the other larger ISPs.

Merging List of tier 1 internet service providers

I'm merging the contents of List of tier 1 internet service providers. This should be a quick merge.

However, that article is in the odd situation of having a talk page MUCH longer than the article itself! I don't know if we're supposed to merge the talk pages too. For now, here's a link to the talk page as it stands now... talk page snapshot Jamie 01:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Merge complete. The page still needs to be cleaned up and wikified. Jamie 01:41, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

hah?

It reads "Tier 1's gain a significant portion of their IP Transit revenue from traffic which stays "on-net", by being delivered between two customers without ever leaving its network." Since they work only on peering isn't "free" delivery the _only_ thing tier 1 carriers know? --161.76.99.106 00:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reason this is the case is becasue Tier 1 providers actually get paid _twice_ for on-net traffic as it travels between customers instead of going from a customer to a peer. --- Jwvo 04:19, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's still an insignificant amount. The largest it's _ever_ been for _any_ provider, at any time in history, was 0.65%, for UUNet, just before their bankruptcy. I don't think 0.65% constitutes a "significant portion." Bill Woodcock 03:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uhh, Bill...what? Sprint, just a few years ago (2002/2003) was doing about 30% "on-net". It's definitely decreased, but a number of the Tier 1's still have signifigant "on-net" traffic.

List of tier 1's updated

List of tier 1 isp's were updated, to include several that people always leave out as well as fix the status of Cogent Communications. Which is _NOT_ a tier 1 isp. Soms

Since folks wanted to explicitly exclude one ASn from one of thee entrants, fleshed out several of the other ASNs from the named entities which 'don't count". jzp

Someone added Teleglobe/VSNL to the list of Tier 1s. I fixed the entry to match the others and updated the total number at the top of the list. I did this only to fix the readability of the list and I can't vouch for the accuracy of including Teleglobe/VSNL on the list. If someone with the expertise can do a check I would greatly appreciate it. Sperril 19:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, it was removed. Sperril 19:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Added XO Communications to the List of Tier 1 ISP's. XO Opperates a 9 Core Node OC-192 Backbone, is publicly peared at all 7 traditional NAPs and at the two new NAPs that have been created in Miami (NAP of the Americas) and the Seattle NAP. XO leases no transit service and has a 100% default free back bone with over 220 private peering points in 9 domostic and 3 international locations.

NPOV Tag

The tag was added by MureninC, who (from text not shown correctly in the tag) says:

"This list looks really strange, it only has one non-american company, and major players like Telia are not here at all; information must be extended, and if Telia etc. do not qualify, then they must be put into Tier 2 article with explanations"

I don't know enough about the subject to comment either way, so comments are appreciated. It would probably help to have verified sources for this information (cf. WP:NOR) --H2g2bob 16:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to globalise tag, as that seems more in-keeping with the problem --H2g2bob 17:12, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Moved text by 81.234.199.232 from page to here (info appears to be correct, so adding): --H2g2bob 23:25, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

== Question, is TeliaSonera AS1299 a tier 1 carrier? ==

YES:

Renesys names TeliaSonera AS1299 a tier 1 network/carrier. Renesys is a solid player in this field.
The previous gw that was mentioned does no loinger exist/being used, the customer part is also removed. From what we can see TeliaSonera AS1299 is now using two major interconnection points, one in San Jose and the other on in New York. Not showing evidence of transit.

NO:

According to Verizion AS701 peering paper, TeliaSonera does not qualify for peering. Specifically, Verizon requires that a settlement-free peer meet them in all major cities where they share a mutual presence. Telia and Verizon only appear to interconnect in New York, Ashburn, and San Jose; they do not connect in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles, et cetera.
Verizon maintains a strict architecture in which peers (settlement-based or settlement-free) are connected on border ("BR" in traceroute) routers, and paying customers on gateways ("GW"). Telia only connects to "GW" routers. -- Source for this?!

additional discussion follows, though this should be cleaned up into pros and cons listed above by somebody...

What about TeliaSoneraIC AS1299? (not AS 5518, 3308 or 3301) --81.234.199.232

For the record, 70.224.205.218 removed this again, as "Telia is not a Tier1 (see def: settlement free and no transit)" --H2g2bob 16:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would someone like to tell me why TIER1-carrier Telia IC 1299 is being removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.234.199.232 (talk • contribs)

Re-added TeliaSoneraIC with disputed tag. The crux of this confusion, I think, may stem from the definition of Tier 1 carrier. TeliaSoneraIC claims on it's website that it's a "Tier 1 carrier" [1], but it may be unclear what definition of "Tier 1" they are using. Tier 1 on this page is stated as being an ISP which doesn't pay for peering with any other ISPs. I don't know any way of verifying whether the ISP is Tier 1 in this context or not, perhaps someone can suggest something. --H2g2bob 19:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

PS, Don't forget you can sign posts like this: ~~~~

I havent got any ideas of TSIC peering agreements, but they have directpeering to all other TIER1-carriers in market, and they are a very significant provider in Europe. When AGIS was bought several years ago, they "received" TIER-1 status in the US(which I guess they already had in Europe). ~~81.234.199.232

why has TSIC's been removed again(excuse my language now) what the f*ck? If someone's gonna keep removing it, It would be pretty good if that person had some arguments stating that TSIC is not TIER1, if not stop removing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.234.199.232 (talk • contribs)

Reverted edit so it's back on the page. It has a disputed tag, so it's bad wikiquette to remove it without explanation on the talk page. --H2g2bob 11:32, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TSIC removed again.... I'm still trying to find an explanation. Couldnt anyone lock the edit-function so its not possible to just remove without a valid explanation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.234.199.232 (talk • contribs)

Why? Simple. Telia purchases transit from 701 and 7018 (and others?) and is therefore not a tier 1 provider. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.227.33 (talk • contribs)

Still just plain comments without any resources given at all. And I can tell you one thing for sure - that is tsic does NOT purchase transit from 7018. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.234.199.232 (talk • contribs)

No, TSIC purchases transit from AT&T and UUNET. This is easily verifiable w/ BGP communities and looking at PTR records for the kind of devices they connect to. Would the fact that you're posting from a telia.com host (corporate firewall?) have anything to do with your inaccuracy and bias? :)

I'd like to hear how you can determine who x buys transit from by looking at PTR records?

teliasonera.CUSTOMER.alter.net == probably a customer and not a peer, one would think :)

Sure, I've seen that one, but I havent seen one from AT&T, unless you are thinking of att-gw.ny.telia.net, though that one doesnt reveal any peer/transit.

You know guys, we could leave this discussion at "they purchase UUNET transit and are therefore not settlemen free" and end the bickering right now. TSIC is not tier 1.

Wrong! TSIC is an tier1 provider. It has the biggest and strongest european backbone, it does not buy traffic from other providers in north america, simply does a traffic exchange. Therefore its a tier1 provider and should be listed as one.

Edit2, Telia is not TeliaSonera International Carrier, Telia is the local provider for Sweden. Get the fact straights. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.227.136.194 (talk) 13:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also I wish to add, that Russian branch TSIC purchases the Russian transit from company TTK (as20485). Here so for example from the Moscow part of network TSIC it is visible company GLDN.NET, which is peer of company TTK.

Edit: No you donkey, they buy transit from tsic, you notice the c before telia.net, that c stands for customer. Pay for russian transit, what a joke. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.227.136.194 (talk) 11:58, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1 transtelecom-113434-mow-b2.c.telia.net (213.248.97.174)

2 TTK-lgw.Moscow.gldn.net (194.186.0.193) [AS 3216]

3 cat03.Moscow.gldn.net (195.239.10.189) [AS 3216]

195.209.41.226 22:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)Russian user[reply]

List of Not-Tier-1's

Ok people, I know we ALL think that our favorite carriers are Tier 1's because their website says it is, but that doesn't make it so. In addition to some blatant vandalism from Cogent and Telia staff repeatedly adding themselves, there are no shortage of well meaning users who want to add networks because they legitimately believe that they know of a new tier 1 which hasn't been mentioned. Please, let me assure you that every true Tier 1 has been included in the list of 9, and all of the common misconceptions and previous subjects of debate have been added to the Not-Tier-1 list, along with a verifiable reason why they are not.

Just because a network is not a Tier 1 does not make it any more or less important, so PLEASE stop vandalizing the legitimate technical facts of this article with marketing. If you think you have a network which is a tier 1 and isn't listed, please ask here and someone will be happy to research it and tell you why it isn't and help you add it to the Not-Tier-1 list. If you have any doubt in your mind, ask yourself "am I an expert in the complex issues surrounding tier 1 interconnection?". If the answer is no, the network you're thinking of is probably not a tier 1.

Thanks you! :)

Humble226 07:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess youre referring to me(81.234.199.232) as a "telia employee", I would just ask you to do a lockup or a check on ripe, which will verify where and to what that ip-adress belongs to. HINT - it's not 1299. You mentioned research, obviously you missed that part yourself.

AboveNet does NOT buy from Sprint where do you people get your information from. Take your sales FUD and go sell POTS lines.

AboveNet does not pay for peering with Sprint they pay a fines for bad peering ratios. Does this still put them as a non-tier 1 provider? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.184.57.9 (talk • contribs) 00:28, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We need to take a look at AS6461 (abovenet)... I can't find any evidance that they actually buy transit as stated here. In fact, until 2004 they provided transit for cogent. If i take a look at a BGP feed from them, I see every tier one as a direct neighbor. That being said, if they are tier 1, they are the smallest one given they only announce about 4700 routes to their peers --- Jwvo 03:28, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Under normal circumstances they use BGP communities to only accept Sprint customer routes, and to restrict propagation of their announcements to Sprint customers. But they definitely receive a full table from Sprint, and they have used it in the past when necessary. For example, when ATDN was threatening to depeer them due to their ratio, the Sprint routes came out to reduce traffic via ATDN peers. You can also see that they are terminated onto customer gateway routers, not peering routers:

Name: sl-gw19-rly-3-0.sprintlink.net Address: 144.232.247.85

Name: sl-abovenet-19-0.sprintlink.net Address: 144.232.247.86

Until recently you could even see the full routes in their looking glass, but they finally blocked access to this view.

Humble226 18:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like cogent just recently started getting a direct peer from sprint. The router names on the sprint traceroute are identical to those on Sprint's Level3 peer. Based on that, I am going to assume it is settlement free:

trace from sprint to level3:

 1 144.232.1.170 0 msec 0 msec 0 msec
  2 sl-st20-la-11-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.94) 108 msec 4 msec 196 msec
  3 so-1-0-0.gar1.LosAngeles1.Level3.net (64.152.193.73) [AS 3356] 4 msec 108 msec 12 msec
  4 ae-2-52.bbr2.LosAngeles1.Level3.net (4.68.102.33) [AS 3356] 0 msec

trace from sprint to cogent:

  1 sl-bb24-ana-13-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.138) 0 msec 0 msec 0 msec
  2 sl-st21-la-13-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.20.69) 0 msec 4 msec 4 msec
  3 154.54.13.41 [AS 174] 72 msec 0 msec 0 msec
  4 t3-2.mpd01.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.3.21) [AS 174] 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
  5 t8-4.mpd01.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.197) [AS 174] 36 msec 32 msec 36 msec

Cogent does however seem to be continuing to use verio transit to reach AOL (traceroute from cogent's side):

Type escape sequence to abort. Tracing the route to www.aol.com.websys.akadns.net (64.12.192.2)

 1 g10-0-224.core01.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.250.4.5) 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
 2 t3-1.mpd01.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.102) 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
 3 t2-1.mpd01.sjc01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.181) 16 msec 12 msec 16 msec
 4 v3490.mpd01.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.82) 12 msec 16 msec 12 msec
 5 verio.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.10.50) 36 msec 12 msec 12 msec
 6 p16-0.aol.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.9.42) 16 msec 12 msec 16 msec
 7 bb1-sjg-P0-0.atdn.net (66.185.150.80) 12 msec 16 msec 12 msec
 8 bb1-ash-P14-0.atdn.net (66.185.153.58) 84 msec 84 msec 84 msec
 9 pop3-ash-P0-0.atdn.net (66.185.148.209) 188 msec 84 msec 84 msec
10 dar1-mtc-S0-0-0.atdn.net (66.185.148.222) 84 msec 84 msec 84 msec

Jwvo 18:06, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of Not-tier-1's

I do think the 'not tier 1' section is quite confusing. I understand the need for a list of those commonly (and wrongly) assigned to being Tier 1 but my first impression when scrolling through the article was that this must be a list of Tier1's, now the text does make this clear but I think maybe a heading with something like "Non Tier 1 networks attributed to be Tier 1" (or something slightly more concise perhaps?)

ny156uk 08:04, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is ATDN a Tier 1 Network?

I am looking at Route views routing archive to test tier 1 claims. I am a very beginner. When I saw the following, my initial thought was that ATDN (AS1668) buys transit from 703. Isn't that true? If not, can someone tell me which ISPs are peering and which ISPs are buying transit from others?

 [vijay@lab data]$ grep "2914 701 703 1668" oix-full-snapshot-2006-07-01-0000.dat | uniq
 *                   129.250.0.85             6             0 2914 701 703 1668 i
 [vijay@lab data]$ grep "7018 701 703 1668" oix-full-snapshot-2006-07-01-0000.dat | uniq
 *                   12.0.1.63                              0 7018 701 703 1668 i

--Vijaykcm 04:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Who was forgotten?

Whoever did this list seems to have forgotten Cable & Wireless. They are a British company who owns, operates and leases backbone, pipe, bandwidth (whatever you want to name it) to other telecom companies across the world. To leave them out of a list like this seems to be a disservice by the uninformed.

Cable & Wireless (AS1273) buys transit from Level 3 (AS3356) and Savvis (AS3561). You can see paths like the following ones from route-views.

 11608 2914 3356 1273 8866 9070 20876 31296 35424
 11608 2914 3356 1273 9158
 11608 2914 3356 1273 9158 15564
 11608 2914 3356 1273 9158 35376
 11608 2914 3561 1273
 11608 2914 3561 1273 10292
 11608 2914 3561 1273 1103 1104
 11608 2914 3561 1273 1103 1128
 11608 2914 3561 1273 1103 12654

--Vijaykcm 04:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

XO a Tier 1

I noticed that XO was recently added as to the list of true tier 1 networks. Can anyone confirm that they are no longer subject to being paid peers of Sprint and Level3, as the previous version of this page indicated? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jaufder (talk • contribs) 20:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

...Added, by someone from behind an XO netblock. Draw your own conclusions.

Telstra?

What about Telstra, AS1221? Who is their upstream provider? It seems most routes go via AS4637 which is Reach, half owned by Telstra. I'm not an expert in this matter, I'm looking for information. Icd 02:49, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bad

The wiki article is poor. There is no "backbone" and there are no pure Tiers. Most networks are various mixes of paid and settlement-free peering at private and public exchanges. Useful distinctions might be made among networks by their composition of the mixtures. A useful network quality comparison might include the number of routes and latency to various networks, but such latency measurements would be subject to biases dependent on where the sensors were placed. (Whichever networks the sensors are located in will measure better than others.) If we assume most of the large networks are internally similarly fast due to being built with big pipes roughly comparable to other large networks, then the number of (aggregated) routes they can provide may be a useful comparison criteria. Given reasonably symmetrical peering agreements, more routes generally means more direct connections. Having more direct connections between similarly fast networks will generally result in the lowest latency with the other networks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.204.169.179 (talk) 13:30, 13 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Regardless of the usefulness/uselessness of the tier definitions (and you're probably right), the article describes how the term "Tier 1 ISP" is used and understood, it is not the original source of the definitions, so your description of the article as "bad" isn't quite appropriate. Thedangerouskitchen 15:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, but meta-discussions about the appropriateness or background assumptions of a given article probably constitute meaningful commentary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.204.169.179 (talk) 10:38, 21 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

This article is of use to those trying to understand what it means to be connected to various networks with respect to hosting decisions. If I choose to buy hosting/networking from a tier 1 company I know that they are not going to loose service to parts of the internet because they didn't pay their bill. They *might* loose connectivity because of a peering dispute but that's an entirely different level of risk. If I buy hosting/networking from a tier 2 provider there is the chance that I would loose access to parts of the internet due to them not paying their bill or due to a peering dispute, higher level of risk and different ways the risk could manifest itself. If I buy service from a tier 3 provider I have the risk of loosing access to all of the internet because they didn't pay their bills. Additionally peering agreements are different from transit agreements in ways that could affect end customers differently (different circumstances in which one network will accept/deliver traffic to another). - mec 12 August 2007

I tend to think that a tier 2 network is more reliable in this regard than a borderline tier 1. A network that thinks of itself as tier 2 is going to be in the habit of paying bills, and good ones typically buy transit from at least two tier 1 providers. If there's some temporary billing screwup, they'll probably still have full transit from their other tier 1 during the brief loss of one upstream while the billing problem is resolved. Whereas a carrier that thinks of itself as tier 1 that isn't thought of as a tier 1 by the bigger network operators may be more likely to get into a fight where it refuses to pay money, and its customers lose out. JNW2 19:47, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Peering Agreement Standards

Are there standards which a "Peering Agreement" must meet in order to be considered a peering agreement for the purposes of this article? Are there different types of Peering Agreements? For example if three networks all interconnect (A, B and C) could network A have an agreement with B that says they will relay to C in the event of a failure in the A-C connection but at the same time have an agreement with C that says that they will only peer for traffic between A and C but will not pass on traffic to B. If so should these be examined and tiered? mec 12 August 2007

If A is a tier 2 network, C is a tier 2 network, and B is a tier 1 network, there are probably plenty of examples of that in the real world. In the typical case, A is buying transit from B, and C is buying transit from B, and there's some more direct and cheaper A-C settlement-free interconnection. JNW2 19:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clean Up Badly Needed

This article is currently incoherent. I understand that some of the content in earlier versions was controversial, but the current version of the article is just a mess. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geoffsnowman (talk • contribs) 23:27, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]