What's The Difference Between Tier-1-Tier-2-And Tier-3 Bandwidth Providers To Your Business?

"Tiers" in the telecom world tends to have multiple definitions, depending on who you ask. What tier a bandwidth carrier is, is loosely defined at best and everyone has their own opinion of what tier a carrier might be. Here is my opinion:

Tier-1: [may be considered an RBOC or LEC - Regional Bell Operating Company or Local Exchange Carrier]

Tier-1 is a network in which only settlement free peers and customers are serviced. The network operator pays for none of it's transit.

Tier-1 is the optimum network backbone for medium to large businesses with critical reliability, stability, and scalability requirements.

Tier-1 can be an advantage when it comes to handling DDoS attacks: if you ask/configure your Tier-1 provider to null-route an IP they will implement the null-route at their borders, so there is no point of saturation.

Examples of US Tier 1 carriers:

Qwest
AT&T (formerly SBC, Bell South, Southwestern Bell, Ameritech)
Savvis
Verizon (formerly MCI and UUNET)
Global Crossing
Level 3 (recently merged with Broadwing)
NTT Communications

Tier-2: [may be considered a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier); has their own network, but also resells tier 1]

Tier-2 is where the network operator buys all or some of it's transit from a Tier-1 and resells it.

Tier-2 can be an advantage if you need someone to provide quality bandwidth, and especially if your need is a single install location. If you buy from Tier-1 #1 in New York, and #1 has a problem with its Tier-1 #2 peering router in New York, then all your traffic from you to #2 may be affected. Your ability to shout at #1 and get them to fix it will be limited, especially if the problem is with #2's border router. A good Tier-2 will monitor its upstreams and their peering points for trouble, and take measures to ensure that it doesn't affect their customers. Even if you need multi-location installs, buying from a good Tier-2 can be useful.

A Tier-2 that only responds to severe problems (e.g. total outage of an upstream link) is no more useful than a Tier-1 to someone who has multi-locations.

Pricing from Tier-2 ISPs is often cheaper at the low-end (e.g. T1). Tier-2's will often beat the tier-1's in pricing "access services". But if you buy in the hundreds of megabits, a Tier-2 is likely to quote much higher than a Tier-1.

Tier-2's are usually smaller companies, and are better able to "make deals", or recognize bundling of contracts, write custom SLAs (Service Level Agreements), trench fiber to your location in exchange for that signed contract, etc. Unless you buy multiple gigabits from your upstreams, if you want to bundle contracts with Tier-1s, you will probably end-up doing it through a wholesaler or other buying mechanism.

Examples of US Tier-2 carriers:

XO Communications
Covad
Paetec/US LEC
Time Warner Telecom (recently merged with Xpedius)
Eschelon Telecom Inc
Cogent Communications
Speakeasy
Embarq
McLeodUSA
AOL Transit Data Network
Covista
IDT Corp.

Tier 3: [wholesalers /resellers of tier 1 and 2 networks]

Tier-3 are downstream customers of Tier-2's. Tier-3 may give you what looks like a good price.....but longterm reliability, performance, and scalability will likely suffer. For piece of mind for your business a Tier-1 or Tier-2 are better choices is almost every case. However, PowerNet Global is a big exception to this rule due to their solid infrastructure and relationships with major players.

Examples of US Tier-3 carriers:

Trinsic
Excel
Primus Telecom
PowerNet Global
Access One Inc.
Splice Communications
Acceris

Whatever business application you need met be sure to consider what tier your available bandwidth providers are in your purchasing decision. Ignoring this factor in your deliberations may result in less than optimum implementation and satisfaction in the end. Make a smart business decision.....leave nothing to chance.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications....including DS3-Bandwidth.com and Business-VoIP-Solution.com. Michael also authors Broadband Nation where you're always welcome to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, insights, and ramblings for the masses.

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CECT E689 - Three Sim Bluetooth Touchscreen iPhone Clone PDA - Technology With Three Phone Numbers

Consumers can thank Chinese iClone manufacturers for the innovative idea to give consumers more than one cell phone number or cell phone plan with dual sim cards. Chinese manufacturers could not help but notice that although consumers loved iPhone technology, they often carried around not only their touchscreen smartphone of choice, but still carried a business line as well. It didn't make much sense to pay for all of this wonderful technology and still carry around two phones.

So, in addition to improving iPhone technology by unlocking the iClones and adding a removable battery and more speakers, the Chinese manufacturer of the clones (CECT) added an additional sim so that consumers could have two cell phone numbers, one for work and one for play. This, coupled with the performance and technology of the new IClones, contributed to the clones being a huge hit.

But consumers started to ask if it was possible to stuff three sims into a phone. It's nice to program one ring tone to one specific number such as the one you will give your children, your spouse or loved one or your employer for emergencies.

CECT promptly answered the call with the CECT E689, the company's new three sim phone. Like the iPhone clones before it, the E689 has every single feature that the iPhone has and then some: internet capabilities, MP3 capabilities, video capabilities, and dual Bluetooth.

This phone will likely appeal to texters because of its keypad import and handwriting recognition. There is a keyboard at the base of the phone which makes texting quick and easy.

The CECT E689 is competitively priced at about $150-$179, depending on where you buy it. Considering it is possibly the most innovative clone on the market at this time loaded with features, it's worth a serious look, especially if you're a frequent texter.

To see specs, photos and rock bottom pricing on the CECT E689, click here to visit the CECT E689 Product Review Website

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