It’s amazing how all the providers out there refuse to tell you who they’re connected to. This is very prevalent amongst VOIP providers as well as quite a few SaaS providers. You want to know who they’re connected to so you can make a decision on whether or not they’re going to be reliable.
So here’s how to do it. It’s easily done through an adjacency check. So here’s the secret.
1. First go to: http://www.level3.com/LookingGlass/ do a traceroute to their webpage or in the case of the VOIP provider, where their sip proxies are located. You want to find the ip address. A simple google search of the provider’s sip servers will give you tons of information on what ip or hostname to traceroute to.
2. Write down the AS number you see that corresponds to the provider’s hostname, ip address, or in some cases, they’re firewalled, the last AS number you see.
3. Go to: http://www.cidr-report.org/cgi-bin/as-report?as=ASxxxxxx you will want to substitute the AS number at the end of the url with AS number you wrote down. This will then chug along and give you a pretty complete report.
Look at the AS Adjacency report and you will see who they’re connected to. If they’re only connected to one backbone provider, I would suggest moving on.
If they’re connected to multiple Tier one carriers, or a mix with a Tier one in the adjacency report, chances are they’re a pretty solid provider.
Keep in mind that backbone connectivity is only as good as the technology and people that run the service. You can tell if they’re oversubscribing their bandwidth, on a budget, have redundancy, etc.
This should help you make some incredibly solid decisions on your choice.