Comment by sgjohnson
14 hours ago
> ISPs are the worst.
DTAG is not just a run-of-the-mill consumer ISP. They are a global Tier-1 carrier.
Which of course makes their behavior all that much worse.
14 hours ago
> ISPs are the worst.
DTAG is not just a run-of-the-mill consumer ISP. They are a global Tier-1 carrier.
Which of course makes their behavior all that much worse.
You don't want a tier 1 carrier as your ISP because they are severely limited in connectivity — they only connect to paying customers and other tier 1s. They are to be used as a last resort by the tier 2 ISPs, who provide good packet routing by selecting the best routes from among several backbones.
Never thought I'd see this play out in practice, especially with a consumer ISP. Normally this comes up with server hosting, not consumer ISPs.
> You don't want a tier 1 carrier as your ISP
The best part about ISPs, is that usually who have very few choices, sometimes only one! Where I grew up, we had the choice of "broadband" (via antennas between an island and mainland) with one ISP, or modem with any telephone company. Eventually, proper cables where put, and we had a choice between 6 different operators.
Where I live now, I only have 3 options for ISPs with fiber, even though I live right outside a huge metropolitan area.
ISP “choice” is mostly a meme, yeah.
But depending on local rules, you can sometimes route around the monopoly: trench your own last-mile (at least on private land), do a neighborhood co-op, connect buildings, etc. It’s sometimes expensive and you’ll hit permits/right-of-way bureaucracy, but it’s totally doable if you’ve got a few (rich) friends or a business willing to back it.
“the conduit is full” is often just BS and a super convenient excuse for incumbents to block competition indefinitely.
Romania is a good example of what happens when lots of small operators aggressively wire dense apartment blocks: brutal competition, low barrier to entry, and suddenly everyone has insane internet.
If digging is blocked, wireless works too. Point-to-point links, WISP stuff, even satellite. The main thing is: you don’t necessarily need your local ISP as your upstream, you just need a path out.
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The day when T-Mobile NL (nowadays known as 'Odido') started routing all traffic via DTAG to 'save costs', and latency increased because in NL you were routed via Frankfurt. And after complaints they actually insisted on this. Then the company got bought by investors, who immediately changed this back, and also changed the name of the company.
They are a tier-1-wannabe. Tier 1 in prices, tier 3 in connectivity. No international peering to speak of, negligible international cables and presence compared to real tier 1.