hi,
ok...i'll bite. i read someone's post addressing concerns of tier1 over tier 2 over tier3 hosts....

my question is...how can you tell?

i haven't figured that much out yet.

Like I always say, "by experience"

I dont know an efficient way, but I guess you could trace em and at least try to find out if they are cable/dsl/dial that would be for tier 3. Just looking at their host you can generally tell. Like a lot will have the words cable/dialup/dsl/etc

thats just my opinion

According to Newton's Telecom Dictionary:

"Tier 1: ... For example a Tier 1 carrier would have over 50 POPs worldwide; have a network managed by a 7x24 NOC; have the ability to reroute... if there is congestion or a hardware problem; have redundancy in terminating locations and have the ability to offer several levels of quality."

Tier 2 and 3 are harder to define.

Basically this phrase is just a marketing ploy, most companies call themselves tier 1, but don't fall into it.

NAC for example meets all the criteria except the 50 POPs world wide. We have over 50 dialup POPs but I wouldn't consider them pertinant to this, our only international POP is in the UK. UUnet meets all the criteria except that they don't offer several levels of quality.

The way I've generally heard it is

Tier 1 is a backbone that only has peering and buys no transit. IE: UUNet, Genuity

Tier 2 would be an isp/backbone that buys transit from another isp but could also have peering. IE: Cogent, NAC

Tier 3 would be an isp/backbone that buys transit from a tier 2.

Generally most hosting proivders will be tier 2 or 3. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Looks like you got it correct.