Choosing the Right IP Transit Provider: 7 Criteria
Not all transit is equal. These seven criteria help you assess a provider - from redundancy and peering to DDoS protection, billing and support.
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An IP transit provider is more than a price per Mbit/s. The quality of the uplink determines the latency, availability and security of your services. These seven criteria help you compare offers objectively.
The 7 criteria at a glance
- 1Redundancy: Ask which router, port and circuit failures the proposed connection covers. Identify dependencies shared by supposedly separate paths.
- 2Peering & reach: Check the provider's PeeringDB profile and reachability to your relevant destinations. Peering counts alone do not demonstrate low latency.
- 3DDoS protection: Clarify filter placement, protected protocols, activation and the limits of the agreed service. Test legitimate connections during acceptance.
- 4RPKI & route security: Ask how RPKI-invalid routes and import and export filters are handled. Origin validation does not validate the complete AS path.
- 5SLA & availability: a clear availability SLA (e.g. 99.95%) with defined response times creates reliability.
- 6Billing: Compare the commit, sampling interval, traffic directions and excess usage rates. Ask for an example of the 95th-percentile calculation.
- 7Support: Clarify availability, escalation routes and agreed response times. Keep technical incident contacts ready.
AS51202 checked
Redundant routers, an open peering policy, DDoS protection included, RPKI validation, 95th-percentile billing and 24/7 engineering support. The 99.95% availability SLA applies under the individual agreement. A free 14-day trial is available after technical coordination.
Conclusion
Record open questions and compare proposals with the same commit, protection scope and handoff location. A trial should cover the applications and failure scenarios that matter to your operations.