Thanks to all who replied with data, and yes, the pricing was all 95th percentile. Wow - the U.S. has an amazingly unhealthy and cut throat transit market in 2004. About 20 folks responded, most saying the Peering Coordinator quotes (below) sounded about right.
ISP Transit Commits and Prices
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
if you commit to 1M per month you will pay about $125/Mbps if you commit to 10M per month you will pay about $ 60/Mbps if you commit to 100M per month you will pay about $45/Mbps if you commit to 1000M per month you will pay about $30/Mbps
A couple people said these prices were TOO HIGH, particularly for the gig commit, although several multi-gig commits came in tiered; for example, $45/Mbps for 1G commit, $35 for 2G, etc. on down to $21 for 8G commit. (One Tier 2 ISP said that they sold 1G commit as low as $18/Mbps, presumably simply reselling Tier 1 BW so the difference may be negligible.) Three said that these transit prices were TOO LOW, in one case they paid about double these numbers. It was interesting that these three were a content company, a cable company and a DSL company, folks who traditionally don't sell transit. Maybe they are in a retail market for transit, while everyone else buys in the wholesale market. Since so many said these prices are about right, I'll use them for the Peering versus Transit analysis. A couple people pointed to the 10M commit being closer to $80/Mbps, so that may be an adjustment. Given the adjustment, I thought you might be interested in how the U.S. transit prices compare against a handful of other Peering Ecosystems: The Cost of Internet Transit inÂ… Commit AU SG JP HK USA 1 Mbps $720 $625 $490 $185 $125 10 Mbps $410 $350 $150 $100 $80 100 Mbps $325 $210 $110 $80 $45 1000 Mbps $305 $115 $50 $50 $30 Round numbers anyway FWIW. Hope this helps. I feel bad for those selling transit these days - at these prices, margins must be mighty thin, and I suspect we will see some more turbulence in the industry. Bill