North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Sprint v. Cogent, some clarity & facts

  • From: Dave Israel
  • Date: Mon Nov 03 16:12:30 2008 
Rod Beck wrote:
> And a 'Tier One' nework is a transit-free network that can reach all end points (end user IP addresses)
A "Tier One" is best defined as "the ISP the salesman represents."  It
originally referred to transit-free, settlement-free ISPs, but over
time, bigger ISPs began to play with the definition to try to
differentiate themselves from the smaller ISPs that did not have the
reach they had, and smaller players began glossing over paid peering and
similar arrangements and claiming Tier One status.  Since there's no
formal definition, anybody can claim they are Tier One or that somebody
else is not.  Don't trust the term.