On 7 December 2015 at 01:54, Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:
So, hypothetically speaking, if Level3 and NTT both charge $2/mb/s/month, and Cogent and HE charge $0.75/mb/s/month, you might find that you get a more cost-effective blend by getting 3 circuits, one each from Level3 OR NTT, and Cogent, and HE, for a total cost of $2+$0.75+$0.75, or $3.50, instead of the other option of buying two circuits, one each from Level3 and NTT, which would be $2+$2, or $4.
Or you could buy from some so called "tier 2" or "tier 3" providers instead. Say the world has 6 tier 1 providers called A, B, C, D, E and F. Ideally you would get the best connectivity (the most direct routes) by buying from two tier 2, one which has A, B and C as uplink and the other has D, E and F. In my experience the connectivity between tier 1 providers can be really bad. If I use only my Cogent transit, some traffic will go from Europe to New York and back again. The performance is so bad that my customers will start calling me and claim the network is down. Just looking at the routing table will not tell you the full story here. Back to the real world: Cogent is good for dirt cheap transit, HE is good for their massive peering and then you also take in someone local to cover all your bases. Regards, Baldur