internet service providers

Question

I am unclear about the differences between international, national, regional and local ISPs. Please explain the differences and their importance, with examples.

Answer 1

Sorry t obe snippy, but what is there not to understand in differences?

• International ISP's are - guess it - INTERNATIONAL (i.e. covering more than one - surprise - nation). These are hugh monsters, like AOL was once, for example. Vodaphone wireless internet access is a more current example.
• National ISP's are - again, guess what - NATIONAL. Now what could that mean? Exactly - limited to one nation. A national telco offering ISP services comes to my mind, though many will be international by now.
• Now guess what REGIONAL ISP's would be? EXACTLY - limited to one region.
• And finally LOCAL ISP's are local - stuff like a city wide network provider.

If that sounded sarcastic - sorry, but at the end you ask "what is the differenc bewtween the color blue and the color green". Differences are obvious. The name already has them in them.

Now, importance - that totally depends on your point of view. Define importnace if you want a sensible answer. Obviously international ISP's are biggest, financially strongest, have a wide reach. OTOH try gettign a sensible respoinse out of them - a city wide small internet provider will be someone you can call and get someone up the food chain on the phone fast.

Answer 2

I think a better way to understand ISPs our in the terms of Tier 1, 2, and 3 ISPs (Although there can be some interpretation here). These are all mentioned on Wikipedia in their respective articles, and you can start with the article on Tier 1 networks.

In a simplified summary... In the Internet organizations (particularly ISPs) get blocks of IP addresses. They can then advertise these IPs addresses to other networks. Tier 1 networks are considered the center of the internet and at least for the most part don't pay other Teir 1 providers to advertise their routes. Then Tier 2 networks would pay transit fees to Teir 1 network(s) to advertise their routes to some, but still peer with large portions of the Internet. Finally, Tier 3 would only have transit service for the customers and are basically resellers.

So with the tier model, it is roughly analogous to Teir 1 being International, Tier 2 being National, and Tier 3 being regional. I say roughly because it the structure of the Internet as I interpret it is more about arrangements between ISPs and telecom companies than it is geography.

The Teir 2 wikipedia article has a decent picture if you are visual person: .

As far as examples go, Tier 1 includes Level 3 and AT&T (Both happen to be international). Tier 2 might be something national such as France telecom or something like that (although could be international as well). Tier 3 is likely to be someone like a collocation facility when they provide the internet as well. Yu said you are unclear how to tell if an ISP fits into which category. That is not your fault, these terms get thrown around by marketing and are not all that well defined when it comes to how they are actually used.

For advantages and disadvantages there is a good article here. Perhaps a rule of thumb is to chose a Tier that is relative to the size of your company. Most people are going to end up with 2 or 3 if I had to guess.