Re:Map of the Internet
by astrange on Tuesday May 18, 2021 @09:52PM
(#27203673)
What are they providing if they don't own the cables? Are they shared with other non-ISP issues, or is it more like when a company builds an office building and then leases it from themselves?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
what I described above would be at layers 1 and 2 in the OSI model (the cable itself and underlying physical assets)
a company like Cogent, HE, they're providing at layer 3 the routers, network engineering, IP space (in many cases, not all, mostly for enterprise customers), and what is known as "IP transit" - transiting a customer's traffic through their network to all of their peers. And maintaining the cost of buying all those inter-city transport circuits to link all of their routers within their AS together.
https://www.teliacarrier.com/knowledge-hub/what-is-guides/wh...
https://www.thousandeyes.com/learning/techtorials/transit-pr...
https://blog.telegeography.com/what-is-ip-transit-definition