Re: Sprint v. Cogent, some clarity & facts

And a 'Tier One' nework is a transit-free network that can reach all end points (end user IP addresses) A "Tier One" is best defined as "the ISP the salesman represents." It originally referred to transit-free, settlement-free ISPs, but over time, bigger ISPs began to play with the definition to try to differentiate themselves from the smaller ISPs that did not have the reach they had, and smaller players began glossing over paid peering and similar arrangements and claiming Tier One status. Since there's no

Rod Beck wrote: formal definition, anybody can claim they are Tier One or that somebody else is not. Don't trust the term.