Mailing List Archive

Paying for "peering", doesn't stop you being a tier-1.

Being a Tier-1 means you are "transit free" (technical term, not
commercial). No one is transiting your routes to other Tier-1 providers.

On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 11:04 AM Rubens Kuhl <rubensk@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi.
>
> Looking at the article on Tier 1 networks, I found one that I know for a
> fact that pays for some transit (12956) and some I usually don't associate
> to Tier 1 status, like 6762.
>
> Is there a list of such transit relationships by those bragging about
> being Tier 1 ?
>
>
> Rubens
>

> On 1 Aug 2022, at 11:10 am, Tom Paseka via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
>
> Paying for "peering", doesn't stop you being a tier-1.
>
> Being a Tier-1 means you are "transit free" (technical term, not commercial). No one is transiting your routes to other Tier-1 providers.
>

There are a lot of potential interpretations of “Tier 1” and often folk use the one that benefits their own classification (obviously!). The one I think corresponds to the conventional interpretation is "I’m a Tier 1 because I have a SKA peering agreement with other Tier 1 networks and I pay no other network for transit or peering”, or more informally, “I’m a Tier 1 because I pay nobody and everyone pays me, except for my peers.”

I suspect that what goes on is “I’m a Tier 1 because I say so, and noone has contradicted me yet!" :-)

Geoff

On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 3:19 PM Geoff Huston <gih@apnic.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 1 Aug 2022, at 11:10 am, Tom Paseka via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org> wrote:
> >
> > Paying for "peering", doesn't stop you being a tier-1.
> >
> > Being a Tier-1 means you are "transit free" (technical term, not commercial). No one is transiting your routes to other Tier-1 providers.
> >
>
> There are a lot of potential interpretations of “Tier 1” and often folk use the one that benefits their own classification (obviously!). The one I think corresponds to the conventional interpretation is "I’m a Tier 1 because I have a SKA peering agreement with other Tier 1 networks and I pay no other network for transit or peering”, or more informally, “I’m a Tier 1 because I pay nobody and everyone pays me, except for my peers.”

This conventional interpretation is the one I'm applying in this question.

> I suspect that what goes on is “I’m a Tier 1 because I say so, and noone has contradicted me yet!" :-)

Which is unfortunately what some operators serving my region try
applying. And after being contradicted, they move to "regional Tier-1"
speech, which is something nobody ever defined.


Rubens

6762 became transit free some 15 years ago while I was still working there.

>
> This conventional interpretation is the one I'm applying in this question.
>

I would argue even the 'conventional' definition of 'Tier 1' has been
nebulous for long enough that it doesn't really matter much anymore.

Who a network connects with and how is all that matters, regardless of what
label they want to apply to themselves.



On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 2:41 PM Rubens Kuhl <rubensk@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 3:19 PM Geoff Huston <gih@apnic.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > > On 1 Aug 2022, at 11:10 am, Tom Paseka via NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Paying for "peering", doesn't stop you being a tier-1.
> > >
> > > Being a Tier-1 means you are "transit free" (technical term, not
> commercial). No one is transiting your routes to other Tier-1 providers.
> > >
> >
> > There are a lot of potential interpretations of “Tier 1” and often folk
> use the one that benefits their own classification (obviously!). The one I
> think corresponds to the conventional interpretation is "I’m a Tier 1
> because I have a SKA peering agreement with other Tier 1 networks and I pay
> no other network for transit or peering”, or more informally, “I’m a Tier 1
> because I pay nobody and everyone pays me, except for my peers.”
>
> This conventional interpretation is the one I'm applying in this question.
>
> > I suspect that what goes on is “I’m a Tier 1 because I say so, and noone
> has contradicted me yet!" :-)
>
> Which is unfortunately what some operators serving my region try
> applying. And after being contradicted, they move to "regional Tier-1"
> speech, which is something nobody ever defined.
>
>
> Rubens
>

*nods* Two conversations:


1) What does tier 1 mean?
2) Does it matter?




1) Varies, based on if you are trying to include yourself in that list or not.
2) No.




-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com

Midwest-IX
http://www.midwest-ix.com

----- Original Message -----

From: "Tom Beecher" <beecher@beecher.cc>
To: "Rubens Kuhl" <rubensk@gmail.com>
Cc: "Nanog" <nanog@nanog.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2022 10:58:58 AM
Subject: Re: Allegedly Tier 1s in Wikipedia




This conventional interpretation is the one I'm applying in this question.





I would argue even the 'conventional' definition of 'Tier 1' has been nebulous for long enough that it doesn't really matter much anymore.


Who a network connects with and how is all that matters, regardless of what label they want to apply to themselves.






On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 2:41 PM Rubens Kuhl < rubensk@gmail.com > wrote:

<blockquote>
On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 3:19 PM Geoff Huston < gih@apnic.net > wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 1 Aug 2022, at 11:10 am, Tom Paseka via NANOG < nanog@nanog.org > wrote:
> >
> > Paying for "peering", doesn't stop you being a tier-1.
> >
> > Being a Tier-1 means you are "transit free" (technical term, not commercial). No one is transiting your routes to other Tier-1 providers.
> >
>
> There are a lot of potential interpretations of “Tier 1” and often folk use the one that benefits their own classification (obviously!). The one I think corresponds to the conventional interpretation is "I’m a Tier 1 because I have a SKA peering agreement with other Tier 1 networks and I pay no other network for transit or peering”, or more informally, “I’m a Tier 1 because I pay nobody and everyone pays me, except for my peers.”

This conventional interpretation is the one I'm applying in this question.

> I suspect that what goes on is “I’m a Tier 1 because I say so, and noone has contradicted me yet!" :-)

Which is unfortunately what some operators serving my region try
applying. And after being contradicted, they move to "regional Tier-1"
speech, which is something nobody ever defined.


Rubens

</blockquote>

> On Aug 2, 2022, at 11:58 AM, Tom Beecher <beecher@beecher.cc> wrote:
>
> This conventional interpretation is the one I'm applying in this question.
>
> I would argue even the 'conventional' definition of 'Tier 1' has been nebulous for long enough that it doesn't really matter much anymore.
>
> Who a network connects with and how is all that matters, regardless of what label they want to apply to themselves.


Yeah, I would generally agree with this. The interesting thing as I see it is so much depends of if it’s long-distance or not. If you look at what the content side generally does (Netflix, Akamai, Fastly, AWS/Cloudfront, Cloudflare, Yahoo, Edgecast, Apple, etc).. you see that placed close to the end-users and generally you aren’t going more than a few metros over hopefully.

This generally means you are doing on-ramp to a cloud (Microsoft, Google, AWS, etc) or get content, or rarely go to something that’s much further away (voice, etc).

Those places can’t wait for the traditional peering issues to be resolved will move their traffic to another provider, the day of the traditional SFI/Tier1 is largely history as the volumes are localized, but that long distance performance matters as much as ever.

If you are seeing traffic stuck on any particular provider/path you really should be looking at a regional provider that gives you a good blend vs going to the big “name brand” places that don’t maintain good local connectivity and are more likely to trombone your traffic.

I do this for my small ISP, I purchase from two regional providers that roll up everything nicely so I’m unlikely to have any single outage/issue.


To the other question from Mike, does it matter? Yes, if you are a corporate place and just go to a national provider because of a national agreement, we have all seen how this is problematic in the past, and when there is a big outage, some companies would literally pay that cost for a diverse link.

- Jared

Well right, to some people it matters, but given enough time, they'll experience (though probably not learn) why it doesn't.




-----
Mike Hammett
Intelligent Computing Solutions
http://www.ics-il.com

Midwest-IX
http://www.midwest-ix.com

----- Original Message -----

From: "Jared Mauch" <jared@puck.nether.net>
To: "Tom Beecher" <beecher@beecher.cc>
Cc: "Nanog" <nanog@nanog.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 2, 2022 12:14:58 PM
Subject: Re: Allegedly Tier 1s in Wikipedia



> On Aug 2, 2022, at 11:58 AM, Tom Beecher <beecher@beecher.cc> wrote:
>
> This conventional interpretation is the one I'm applying in this question.
>
> I would argue even the 'conventional' definition of 'Tier 1' has been nebulous for long enough that it doesn't really matter much anymore.
>
> Who a network connects with and how is all that matters, regardless of what label they want to apply to themselves.


Yeah, I would generally agree with this. The interesting thing as I see it is so much depends of if it’s long-distance or not. If you look at what the content side generally does (Netflix, Akamai, Fastly, AWS/Cloudfront, Cloudflare, Yahoo, Edgecast, Apple, etc).. you see that placed close to the end-users and generally you aren’t going more than a few metros over hopefully.

This generally means you are doing on-ramp to a cloud (Microsoft, Google, AWS, etc) or get content, or rarely go to something that’s much further away (voice, etc).

Those places can’t wait for the traditional peering issues to be resolved will move their traffic to another provider, the day of the traditional SFI/Tier1 is largely history as the volumes are localized, but that long distance performance matters as much as ever.

If you are seeing traffic stuck on any particular provider/path you really should be looking at a regional provider that gives you a good blend vs going to the big “name brand” places that don’t maintain good local connectivity and are more likely to trombone your traffic.

I do this for my small ISP, I purchase from two regional providers that roll up everything nicely so I’m unlikely to have any single outage/issue.


To the other question from Mike, does it matter? Yes, if you are a corporate place and just go to a national provider because of a national agreement, we have all seen how this is problematic in the past, and when there is a big outage, some companies would literally pay that cost for a diverse link.

- Jared