Re: Cogent/Level 3 depeering

[Randy Bush <randy () psg com>]

> > 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