Re: Evaluating Tier 1 Internet providers

[Eric A Louie <elouie () yahoo com>]

how is that really much different than "reachability"?  If I look at my present Netflow results, it's actually a pretty 
amusing mix - lots of Netflix traffic (bear in mind we're a business ISP, not residential), Google (probably YouTube in 
there, I haven't dissected it thoroughly), Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft/MSN, and that's all covered in the peering fabric 
connection.  Outside of that, some private VPN-type traffic, I don't see a lot of government networks, just "normal" 
Internet browsing and email.

Since I'm not at the Data Center much, I don't interact with the other customers there.  (It's 150 miles away)  Due to 
non-disclosure, the Data Center gang aren't much going to share their customer contact info with me.  But it's a nice 
thought, for sure.

-e-





> ________________________________
> From: Michael Smith <mksmith () mac com>
> To: Eric Louie <elouie () yahoo com> 
> Cc: nanog () nanog org 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 6:48 PM
> Subject: Re: Evaluating Tier 1 Internet providers
>
>
> You should also consider who exactly your customers (or you alone) want to reach.  Are you mostly looking to connect 
> to eyeball networks?  Enterprise networks?  Government networks?   If you have some target networks you should do some 
> due diligence to find out how well connected your various options are to the networks that mean the most to you.
>
> If possible, I would also recommend talking to other people that are in your data centers, if that's possible.  You 
> might find out about hidden vendor-specific gremlins in that location.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike
>
>
> On Aug 27, 2013, at 12:02 PM, Eric Louie <elouie () yahoo com> 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?
> >
> >
> >
> > routing stability
> >
> > BGP community offerings
> >
> > congestion issues
> >
> > BGP Peering relationships
> >
> > path diversity
> >
> > IPv6 table size
> >
> >
> >
> > 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?)
> >
> >
> >
> > much appreciated,
> >
> > Eric Louie