Buying IP transit: a guide for ISPs and carriers
What to look for when buying IP transit: network reach, routing, latency, capacity, burst billing and support, explained for ISPs, carriers and content networks.
- IP transit gives your network access to the full global internet routing table.
- Compare providers on reach, route diversity, latency and how they handle growth.
- Combine transit with peering and diverse paths for performance and resilience.
For internet service providers, carriers, data centres and content networks, IP transit is the connection to the rest of the internet. The quality of your transit shapes the experience of every customer on your network.
What IP transit is
IP transit is a service where an upstream provider carries your traffic to and from every destination on the internet. You exchange routes with the provider using BGP, and they announce your addresses to the world.
What to compare
Reach and routing
- Does the provider carry the full global routing table?
- How many upstreams and peers do they connect to?
- Are there diverse international paths, such as multiple subsea cable systems?
Performance
- Latency to the regions your customers use most.
- Packet loss and jitter under load.
- Proximity of their points of presence to your network.
Capacity and billing
- Port speeds from 1 Gbps to 100 Gbps.
- Burstable billing so you can handle peaks.
- How quickly you can upgrade as traffic grows.
Operations and support
- 24/7 network operations centre with carrier-grade response times.
- Clear SLA on availability and fault repair.
- Optional DDoS protection.
Transit, peering and resilience
Most networks combine transit with peering at internet exchanges, and buy transit from more than one provider. Diverse paths and multi-homing keep your network online if one route is affected.
How Telxer can help
Telxer Fiber provides IP transit with full BGP routes, wavelengths from 10G to 400G, dark fiber and IX and data centre connectivity for operators. Learn more about our wholesale and carrier services.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between IP transit and peering?
IP transit gives you access to the whole internet through a provider. Peering is a direct exchange of traffic between two networks, usually for their own customers only.
What is burstable billing?
Burstable billing lets you use more than your committed capacity when you need it, typically billed on the 95th percentile of usage.
Do I need my own ASN for IP transit?
An ASN and your own IP addresses let you run BGP with your provider and multi-home across several upstreams, which is standard for ISPs and carriers.
Want help applying this? Our team can review your setup and recommend next steps.
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