Williams Communications (http://wcg.net/) -- are they considered Tier-1 bandwidth provider? I remember reading about them in the same context as Cogent -- that they share parts of their networks or something. Are they good or bad in general? I assume http://www.svie.com/ are using them, right?

Actually the Williams Communications site is http://www.wcg.com. They have a pretty extensive network map:

http://www.wcg.com/map/index.html

But, I am not sure what their peering arrangments are like -- so I can't say if they qualify as Tier 1. I don't normally hear them mentioned among the top 10 providers, and I think they are mostly known for their dark fiber.

I heard from a friend who works at a phone company and he said that William Communication has a peering agreement with Qwest, or even reselling Qwest bandwidth. But I'm not sure.

Originally posted by rey
I heard from a friend who works at a phone company and he said that William Communication has a peering agreement with Qwest, or even reselling Qwest bandwidth. But I'm not sure.

I don't think William's would be reselling Qwest bandwidth. They may be using Qwest for local loop in some cities, but it is doubtful they would resell Qwest bandwidth (though I may be wrong about that).

I don't doubt that Qwest and William's have peering agreements, that would make sense :).

Didn't Williams file for Chap 11 recently?

Originally posted by RackMy.com
Didn't Williams file for Chap 11 recently?

Not yet, but apparently they may be on the edge, similar to MFN. Light Reading has a real good article on the state of some of these carriers:

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=13104

Unfortunately, I do not have the extra $400 to spring for the full report :).

On the quality and reliability scale are they closer to Cogent or to, say, Qwest bandwidth? So, in real world terms, say, if I could get 1Mbps of Cogent bandwidth for $100 and 1Mbps of Qwest bandwidth for $500 (theoretical numbers, let's pretend I don't know real prices for 1Mbps from Cogent/Qwest) how much should I expect to pay for 1Mbps from Williams?

Best way to answer that question is to ask a Williams sales rep. In terms of network architecture, their infrastructure is built more like Qwest than Cogent, except they run their own long-haul fiber, and I do not think Qwest does.

Williams is not the same as Cogent. Like someone else said Williams is very similar to Qwest except in my opinion Williams network is a little better. I am not sure who Williams has peering agreements with other then Qwest and Worldcom.