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