I suppose a response of "I've never heard of them" is overly egotistical :)
There's a very small number of Tier-1 ISPs. I suppose some metrics would include "Your packets almost certainly transit one to get anywhere", "Have a global high speed backbone, which runs at currently fast speeds [OC-192+]" (often owned, sometimes rented) - further discussion suggests that the amount of traffic carried by the network, the amount of transit traffic, and the number of peers [different providers], and number of peering points... as well as the capacity and actual peak bandwidth rate.
Ergh. If you look at: http://www.paetec.com/2_1/2_1_5__2.html [it's a silly animated thing, at that], Paetec definitely doesn't qualify. Not only are they US only, but they have next to nothing in terms of redundant routes, pops, or much of anything.
Here are the top 10 networks in the world in order of size: Company AS Peers MCI 701 2440 Sprint 1239 1792 ATT 7018 1666 Qwest 209 868 Level3 3356 851 C&W 3561 680 GBLX 3549 630 Verio 2914 568 Abovenet6461 523 Genuity 1 329
no subject
There's a very small number of Tier-1 ISPs. I suppose some metrics would include "Your packets almost certainly transit one to get anywhere", "Have a global high speed backbone, which runs at currently fast speeds [OC-192+]" (often owned, sometimes rented) - further discussion suggests that the amount of traffic carried by the network, the amount of transit traffic, and the number of peers [different providers], and number of peering points... as well as the capacity and actual peak bandwidth rate.
Ergh. If you look at: http://www.paetec.com/2_1/2_1_5__2.html [it's a silly animated thing, at that], Paetec definitely doesn't qualify. Not only are they US only, but they have next to nothing in terms of redundant routes, pops, or much of anything.
If you look at Level 3 [http://www.level3.com/577.html], or Global Crossing [http://www.globalcrossing.com/xml/network/net_map.xml], you'll notice that the maps maps are much, much richer.
Here are the top 10 networks in the world in order of size:
Company AS Peers
MCI 701 2440
Sprint 1239 1792
ATT 7018 1666
Qwest 209 868
Level3 3356 851
C&W 3561 680
GBLX 3549 630
Verio 2914 568
Abovenet6461 523
Genuity 1 329
Consider Paetec: http://www.fixedorbit.com/AS/15/AS15270.htm seems to be their main AS, with http://www.fixedorbit.com/AS/13/AS13678.htm as a subsiduary.
... and then look at MCI/UUNET: http://www.fixedorbit.com/AS/0/AS701.htm
So, er, no.