Buying transit from tier 1 is the only way to be connected to tier 1 which all ISPs are required to do to guarantee they can access the whole internet.
HE in particular likes to set up incentives to draw more traffic through themselves. They do free peering to small networks at many IXPs (this doesn't give you full internet access like transit does) and tunnelbroker is also one of these things.
HE in particular likes to set up incentives to draw more traffic through themselves. They do free peering to small networks at many IXPs (this doesn't give you full internet access like transit does) and tunnelbroker is also one of these things.