|
Who are the best T1 carriers? T1 providers will include all "tier one" carriers, both local and traditional inter-exchange carriers. BellSouth, Verizon, SBC, US West, Qwest, MCI, AT&T, and Sprint comprise the list of "tier one" carriers. Tier one carriers, as you can see, are considered the old regional Bell operating companies (or what's left after mergers and consolidations) and the inter-exchange carriers. Recently, MCI and Verizon have announced plans for a merger, so there'll be one less company in this list. "Tier two" carriers will include all the regional, private, and large reseller-based carriers. This list varies from day to day, and includes T1 service providers like Xspedius, Millington Telephone (privately-held Telco), Level 3, and others. Though these T1 suppliers may not be household names in the US Telecom marketplace, they do represent a significant number of subscribers, and typically non-traditional service offerings. Building vs. Leasing? These T1 carriers typically will have a combination of facilities-based services, where they actually own their network infrastructure, and lease-based facilities, where they lease wholesale sections of typically tier one network providers. Leasing among providers of T1s is a commonplace practice, and dates back to 1993 when MCI first challenged AT&T's long distance monopoly. As soon as a carrier like MCI established a small network, a few switches, and the ability to offer diversit y from the incumbent carrier, both customers and incumbent carriers bought service on the new carrier. Even today, AT&T leases T1 service from MCI, MCI leases from AT&T, and others; it's cheaper for carriers to establish a "lease swap" arrangement to establish some diversity in each market, instead of building their own facilities, both in terms of bandwidth and switching capacity. Here are the websites to the main providers of T1 services: |
T1 Providers
