Tier 1 represents the substructure of the physical system. It enables the delivery of digital content and services to the consumer. Infrastructure providers, like cable operators, telcos, and ISPs, will play the key role in deploying these substructure systems. These substructures offer pervasive Internet connectivity to the mass market by combining the following components.
The Internet backbone system is the globally integrated, packet-based data network that will provide the Quality of Service levels (QoS) to support the distribution of digital content among users. This physical system will integrate a wide variety of industrial technologies including servers, routers, satellites, and fiber-optic cables to facilitate the instantaneous, bidirectional flow of data to locations throughout the world.