“Tiers” in the telecom world tends to have many definitions, depending on who you ask. What tier a bandwidth carrier is, is loosely defined at best and everybody has their own belief of what tier a carrier might be. Here is my opinion:
Tier-1: [may be determined an Rboc or Lec - Regional Bell Operating company or Local replacement Carrier]
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Tier-1 is a network in which only hamlet free peers and customers are serviced. The network operator pays for none of it’s transit.
Tier-1 is the optimum network backbone for medium to large businesses with needful reliability, stability, and scalability requirements.
Tier-1 can be an benefit when it comes to handling DdoS attacks: if you ask/configure your Tier-1 supplier to null-route an Ip they will implement the null-route at their borders, so there is no point of saturation.
Examples of Us Tier 1 carriers:
Qwest
At&T (formerly Sbc, Bell South, Southwestern Bell, Ameritech)
Savvis
Verizon (formerly Mci and Uunet)
Global Crossing
Level 3 (recently merged with Broadwing)
Ntt Communications
Tier-2: [may be determined a Clec (Competitive Local replacement Carrier); has their own network, but also resells tier 1]
Tier-2 is where the network operator buys all or some of it’s transit from a Tier-1 and resells it.
Tier-2 can be an benefit if you need man to contribute capability bandwidth, and especially if your need is a particular setup location. If you buy from Tier-1 #1 in New York, and #1 has a qoute with its Tier-1 #2 peering router in New York, then all your traffic from you to #2 may be affected. Your capability to shout at #1 and get them to fix it will be limited, especially if the qoute is with #2′s border router. A good Tier-2 will monitor its upstreams and their peering points for trouble, and take measures to ensure that it doesn’t affect their customers. Even if you need multi-location installs, buying from a good Tier-2 can be useful.
A Tier-2 that only responds to severe problems (e.g. Total outage of an upstream link) is no more useful than a Tier-1 to man who has multi-locations.
Pricing from Tier-2 Isps is often economy at the low-end (e.g. T1). Tier-2′s will often beat the tier-1′s in pricing “access services”. But if you buy in the hundreds of megabits, a Tier-2 is likely to quote much higher than a Tier-1.
Tier-2′s are ordinarily smaller companies, and are great able to “make deals”, or identify bundling of contracts, write convention Slas (Service Level Agreements), trench fiber to your location in replacement for that signed contract, etc. Unless you buy many gigabits from your upstreams, if you want to bundle contracts with Tier-1s, you will probably end-up doing it through a distributor or other buying mechanism.
Examples of Us Tier-2 carriers:
Xo Communications
Covad
Paetec/Us Lec
Time Warner Telecom (recently merged with Xpedius)
Eschelon Telecom Inc
Cogent Communications
Speakeasy
Embarq
McLeodUsa
Aol Transit Data Network
Covista
Idt Corp.
Tier 3: [wholesalers /resellers of tier 1 and 2 networks]
Tier-3 are downstream customers of Tier-2′s. Tier-3 may give you what looks like a good price…..but longterm reliability, performance, and scalability will likely suffer. For piece of mind for your company a Tier-1 or Tier-2 are great choices is almost every case. However, PowerNet Global is a big exception to this rule due to their solid infrastructure and relationships with major players.
Examples of Us Tier-3 carriers:
Trinsic
Excel
Primus Telecom
PowerNet Global
Access One Inc.
Splice Communications
Acceris
Whatever company application you need met be sure to consider what tier your available bandwidth providers are in your purchasing decision. Ignoring this factor in your deliberations may ensue in less than optimum implementation and delight in the end. Make a smart company decision…..leave nothing to chance.
What’s The distinction between Tier-1-Tier-2-And Tier-3 Bandwidth Providers To Your Business?