Evaluating Tier 1 Internet providers

[bhatton at htva.net (Ben Hatton)]

> - time taken to turn around BGP import filter changes

So much This...  You don't realize how important this is until your
nationwide provider takes 8 WEEKS to add one network to your (already set
up and working for 20 other networks) peering.  Then decides to charge you
a fee for the change.

Ben Hatton
Network Systems Engineer



On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 1:05 PM, Justin M. Streiner <streiner at cluebyfour.org
> wrote:

> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013, Eric Louie wrote:
>
>  Good stuff Justin - Any other criteria that you would use?
>>
>
> Joe covered a lot of good stuff in his response.
>
> A few providers call themselves Tier 1, though the accuracy of those
> assertions is often suspect.  The truth can be somewhat more complicated...
> and exactly how much more complicated isn't always clear
> until Provider X gets de-peered by Provider Y and finds themselves having
> to negotiate a quick fix, often by cutting a check.
>
> I would also ask people here who they have had very good experiences with,
> regardless of what "tier" the provider fits into.
>
> jms
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>> From: Justin M. Streiner [mailto:streiner at cluebyfour.**org<streiner at cluebyfour.org>
>> ]
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 9:17 AM
>> To: nanog at nanog.org
>> Subject: Re: Evaluating Tier 1 Internet providers
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Aug 2013, Eric Louie wrote:
>>
>>  Based on various conversation threads on Nanog I've come up with a few
>>> criteria for evaluating Tier 1 providers.  I'm open to add other
>>> criteria - what would you add to this list?  And how would I get a
>>> quantitative or qualitative measure of it?
>>>
>>
>> Define "Tier 1 provider".  I ask this because it's something that many
>> people don't know what it means, but assume that Tier 1 > Tier !=1.
>>
>>  routing stability
>>>
>>
>> Routeviews.org can shed some light here.
>>
>>  BGP community offerings
>>>
>>
>> If $provider has a page on www.peeringdb.com, they might publish a list
>> of
>> their BGP communities there.  Other places to look would be the provider's
>> whois/IRR entries, and on their respective websites, or the
>> sales/marketing
>> folks might be able to get this information for you.
>>
>>  congestion issues
>>>
>>
>> There are various internet traffic report / weather report sites that can
>> give you indirect insight into things like.  By indirect, I mean that you
>> might be able to infer things like congestion at a specific point based on
>> what you see on those sites.
>>
>>  BGP Peering relationships
>>>
>>
>> You can look at pages like www.peeringdb.com, and you will typically see
>> if
>> $provider is at an exchange, however the peering relationships that many
>> providers have other providers (locations, speeds, etc) are confidential.
>>
>>  path diversity
>>>
>>
>> You can ask $provider's sales and marketing folks, but there is no
>> guarantee
>> that you will get an answer (actual routes are considered confidential and
>> proprietary information, despite the fact that a lot of providers' fiber
>> ends up converging in a small handful of routes in some areas - i.e. many
>> of
>> them follow the same set of railroad tracks or cross a river at the same
>> bridge, possibly even in the same conduit) or a correct answer (wave X
>> might
>> be re-groomed onto path Y without a whole lot of customer notification).
>>
>>  IPv6 table size
>>>
>>
>> Sites like routeviews.org can give you some visibility here.
>>
>>  Seems like everyone offers 5 9's service, 45 ms coast-to-coast, 24x7
>>> customer support, 100/1Gbps/10Gbps with various DIR/CIR and burst rates.
>>> I'm shopping for new service and want to do better than choosing on
>>> reputation.  (or, is reputation also a criteria?)
>>>
>>
>> Absolutely reputation should be a factor.  I would argue that Internet
>> access is largely commoditized anymore (and has been for several years),
>> so
>> the real differentiators are cost and level of service.
>>
>> jms
>>
>>
>>
>>
>