Which IP transit provider?
- Thread starter s0ck
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We have been using AboveNet for transit between some Telecity datacentres. All good on the performance/reliability side so far. I have no idea on costs though so hard to put it in complete context.
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It depends really on where most of your traffic is going to. At that level, you'll probably want one good Tier 1, and then a tier 2 with a mix of good coverage that provides good connectivity to LINX and is better in the areas where the tier 1 isn't. We've used Level 3 and they've been great over the last 5 years, and have also just taken on NTT and Cogent as recently so feedback on those will have to wait.
Cogent will give you ridiculous pricing, but their routes can be pretty funky sometimes...
Cogent will give you ridiculous pricing, but their routes can be pretty funky sometimes...
Man of Honour
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If you have a single connection you want a blended transit from a tier 2 provider rather than a tier one, that way you're buying access to multi tier 1 providers and protecting against a fault within their networks. Good as, say, Level3 or Sprint are they do have issues every so often.
Lots of good people in this area, for 100Mbps at a decent prices with lots of availability at the London sites I'd speak to Datahop first.
If you must have tier one service (and for a single connection that's a mistake) then it's something of a minefield as they all have global specialities and routes to some parts are less optimal. I think Sprint currently have the best routing table on average, Level3 are US biased but good. NTT are good for asia and reasonable in general. Telia and TiNet/Tiscali are good for europe but less so elsewhere. Cogent are rubbish in virtually every way, do not be tempted by their super low pricing. Colt are not strictly tier one but are reasonable all round if you want a big name.
Lots of good people in this area, for 100Mbps at a decent prices with lots of availability at the London sites I'd speak to Datahop first.
If you must have tier one service (and for a single connection that's a mistake) then it's something of a minefield as they all have global specialities and routes to some parts are less optimal. I think Sprint currently have the best routing table on average, Level3 are US biased but good. NTT are good for asia and reasonable in general. Telia and TiNet/Tiscali are good for europe but less so elsewhere. Cogent are rubbish in virtually every way, do not be tempted by their super low pricing. Colt are not strictly tier one but are reasonable all round if you want a big name.
That's good to know. One of the complaints we get from over there is poor response time. Is it possible to quantify this over L3?
We currently use Adapt and routing appears to be via L3 so maybe this is the blended transit you're on about?
Soldato
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We use a blend of 8el, Virgin, Daisy although our main connections are via Virgin. Can't really say we have ever had a major problem however 99% of our traffic is UK based (we're far from a global corp).
@ BRS -I know you work for an ISP or Enterprise (can't remember which) so you probably have some kind of source for everything but the info you have RE the peering tables/ASNs/Routing tables, does it come from one particular source? I'm sick of having to look around everything for the information and wondering if there is somewhere better for the public info in one place?
- GP
@ BRS -I know you work for an ISP or Enterprise (can't remember which) so you probably have some kind of source for everything but the info you have RE the peering tables/ASNs/Routing tables, does it come from one particular source? I'm sick of having to look around everything for the information and wondering if there is somewhere better for the public info in one place?
- GP
Can you elaborate on that please? I work for them and while a few years ago it was pretty poor but the network has improved massively now. Many T2 providers and companies like Google, Skype and eBay buy from us.
Granted, Cogent is not comparable to Level 3 or the other big telcos but its in the top 5 most peered networks globally.
I'm just after constructive critiscm, not just trying to defend my employer!
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