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