On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 michael.dillon@bt.com wrote: > On the surface, the comment that I responded > to seemed to be repeating that commonly held belief than only > transit-free, default-free providers with multiple peers for > any given prefix, can be considered Tier 1. Well, taken in its entirety, that's the null set. Hypothetically, setting aside the issue of mainland China, it could be the case that there would be a set of providers which were transit-free. However, if they were transit-free, they would, by definition, never have more than one peer for any single-homed prefix. But in any event, pretty much the definition of "tier 1" is the subset of providers which claim not to buy transit, and peer with each other, and not with anyone else. Whether or not that set is empty or populated is one issue. Whether the term is a useful one is a different issue. How much of a liability it would be to one's self and one's customers to find one's self in that set is a third issue. But I'm not convinced we have a disagreement on our hands here. Just more of an argument. :-) -Bill