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IP transit is probably cheaper if you own the IP transit company. Conceptually this makes sense. Has that Rockefeller vertical integration feel to it. Take thi

IP transit is probably cheaper if you own the IP transit company. Conceptually this makes sense. Has that Rockefeller vertical integration feel to it. Take this with a grain of salt, but from what I've gathered doing IP transit related work, Level3 has something of a reputation of being higher quality transit than many of their competitors. They tend to cost more and people seem to be paying it.

icebraining 10y ago
Has that Rockefeller vertical integration feel to it. Yeah, with the acquisitions they've been making, you can use your home CenturyLink connection, which goes over the CenturyLink backbone cabling, over to CenturyLink's IaaS provider, which hosts an app deployed using CenturyLink's PaaS.
- exelius 10y ago
  CTL is much stronger in the commercial space than they are in residential. Vertical integration is the name of the game in the commercial telecom space, and has been for 30+ years. And really, think of CTL as a decades-long rollup of baby Bells in the north central / midwestern US and they make more sense -- just like AT&T is largely a rollup of the southern and western Bells and Verizon is largely a rollup of east coast Bells. AT&T and Verizon were able to prevent Comcast from becoming a third national competitor (for now), but it looks like CenturyLink will just take their place. Look for them to get into cellular in more than an overbuilding capacity soon though. I will almost guarantee that Sprint ends up with Comcast and T-Mobile with CenturyLink -- though I also wouldn't be surprised if the opposite happens. Our goal as people who use telecom services should be to get as much diversity in telecom as possible. Right now, it's a two-horse race: AT&T / Verizon and Comcast / Charter / Cox. If, in 10 years, we have a choice between AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and CenturyLink... that will be better. Small, local competition for ISPs do not make sense over the long term. It may get you fast speeds over the last mile in the short-term, but doesn't get you a fast connection to everywhere else and the investment levels are going to be unable to keep up after the first generation. The oversubscription model benefits from national scale, and even a national last-mile telecom without a national fiber network will have problems matching the cost structure of their competitors (as we recently saw with TimeWarner Cable). The infrastructure doesn't scale operationally or financially otherwise.
  - chrishacken 10y ago
    " If, in 10 years, we have a choice between AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and CenturyLink... that will be better." CenturyLink is already one of the big players and they'll never enter markets that Comcast, ATT, or Verizon are already in. We're a small ISP and a Level 3 customer. I'm moderately concerned about what this acquisition will mean for companies like us in the long run. The hand that feeds us is now also a competitor.
    - exelius 10y ago
      > CenturyLink is already one of the big players and they'll never enter markets that Comcast, ATT, or Verizon are already in. The market is drastically changing. Wireless has quickly become the center of the telecom industry; look for CTL to jump in there (which would put them in direct conflict with AT&T and Verizon). The FCC rules governing wireless are also a lot more favorable. CTL already overbuilds residential service on top of AT&T/Verizon/Comcast, albeit in select areas that are underserved. There will still be market space for small ISPs in markets that are too small for the large players to serve (just like there are still small, regional wireless companies) but they'll be fighting over the scraps.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      > CenturyLink is already one of the big players and they'll never enter markets that Comcast, ATT, or Verizon are already in. They are entering Comcast's market in Seattle. A lot of places now have two options, where they only had one ~3 years ago.
      - at-fates-hands 10y ago
        They've been competing with Comcast in my area. I was lucky before I moved, I was about 30 yards from the DSLAM and was getting solid internet service from them for about $25 less per month than Comcast. Then I moved to an area they're not servicing very well. My internet speeds went from 60mbs down and 7mbs up to a paltry 4mbs up and 1mbs down. I had to switch to Comcast which wasn't so bad, but I got way better service from CL tbh. I've been told they're building out fiber in my area and their 1gb service will be available "soon".
drieddust 10y ago
My experience is exactly the opposite. I have found Level3 to be slow and unhelpful. This year we have seen a few outages due to this mismanagement of routing. When Easily avoidable mistakes are repeated, it raises a few questions.
- kyledrake 10y ago
  Would you say you're paying more or similar for other transit, and are there any transit providers you have an unusually good experience with? It's one of those industries where you have to negotiate with sales people (I hate doing this) to get any pricing information, and it's extremely difficult to gauge quality. That's why I added "take with a grain of salt" to my general perception comment. Tip for ailing IP transit companies: put your damn pricing on your web site! AWS can do it, you can too. You often offer far better BW rates than the cloud providers do, but you do a horrible job showing it.

icebraining 10y ago

Has that Rockefeller vertical integration feel to it. Yeah, with the acquisitions they've been making, you can use your home CenturyLink connection, which goes over the CenturyLink backbone cabling, over to CenturyLink's IaaS provider, which hosts an app deployed using CenturyLink's PaaS.

exelius 10y ago
CTL is much stronger in the commercial space than they are in residential. Vertical integration is the name of the game in the commercial telecom space, and has been for 30+ years. And really, think of CTL as a decades-long rollup of baby Bells in the north central / midwestern US and they make more sense -- just like AT&T is largely a rollup of the southern and western Bells and Verizon is largely a rollup of east coast Bells. AT&T and Verizon were able to prevent Comcast from becoming a third national competitor (for now), but it looks like CenturyLink will just take their place. Look for them to get into cellular in more than an overbuilding capacity soon though. I will almost guarantee that Sprint ends up with Comcast and T-Mobile with CenturyLink -- though I also wouldn't be surprised if the opposite happens. Our goal as people who use telecom services should be to get as much diversity in telecom as possible. Right now, it's a two-horse race: AT&T / Verizon and Comcast / Charter / Cox. If, in 10 years, we have a choice between AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and CenturyLink... that will be better. Small, local competition for ISPs do not make sense over the long term. It may get you fast speeds over the last mile in the short-term, but doesn't get you a fast connection to everywhere else and the investment levels are going to be unable to keep up after the first generation. The oversubscription model benefits from national scale, and even a national last-mile telecom without a national fiber network will have problems matching the cost structure of their competitors (as we recently saw with TimeWarner Cable). The infrastructure doesn't scale operationally or financially otherwise.
- chrishacken 10y ago
  " If, in 10 years, we have a choice between AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and CenturyLink... that will be better." CenturyLink is already one of the big players and they'll never enter markets that Comcast, ATT, or Verizon are already in. We're a small ISP and a Level 3 customer. I'm moderately concerned about what this acquisition will mean for companies like us in the long run. The hand that feeds us is now also a competitor.
  - exelius 10y ago
    > CenturyLink is already one of the big players and they'll never enter markets that Comcast, ATT, or Verizon are already in. The market is drastically changing. Wireless has quickly become the center of the telecom industry; look for CTL to jump in there (which would put them in direct conflict with AT&T and Verizon). The FCC rules governing wireless are also a lot more favorable. CTL already overbuilds residential service on top of AT&T/Verizon/Comcast, albeit in select areas that are underserved. There will still be market space for small ISPs in markets that are too small for the large players to serve (just like there are still small, regional wireless companies) but they'll be fighting over the scraps.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    > CenturyLink is already one of the big players and they'll never enter markets that Comcast, ATT, or Verizon are already in. They are entering Comcast's market in Seattle. A lot of places now have two options, where they only had one ~3 years ago.
    - at-fates-hands 10y ago
      They've been competing with Comcast in my area. I was lucky before I moved, I was about 30 yards from the DSLAM and was getting solid internet service from them for about $25 less per month than Comcast. Then I moved to an area they're not servicing very well. My internet speeds went from 60mbs down and 7mbs up to a paltry 4mbs up and 1mbs down. I had to switch to Comcast which wasn't so bad, but I got way better service from CL tbh. I've been told they're building out fiber in my area and their 1gb service will be available "soon".

drieddust 10y ago

My experience is exactly the opposite. I have found Level3 to be slow and unhelpful. This year we have seen a few outages due to this mismanagement of routing. When Easily avoidable mistakes are repeated, it raises a few questions.

kyledrake 10y ago
Would you say you're paying more or similar for other transit, and are there any transit providers you have an unusually good experience with? It's one of those industries where you have to negotiate with sales people (I hate doing this) to get any pricing information, and it's extremely difficult to gauge quality. That's why I added "take with a grain of salt" to my general perception comment. Tip for ailing IP transit companies: put your damn pricing on your web site! AWS can do it, you can too. You often offer far better BW rates than the cloud providers do, but you do a horrible job showing it.