>It is not a matter of just being shut down due to low volume. The rates that you get depend on the volume. So the "back up" gateways end up so expensive you ha

>It is not a matter of just being shut down due to low volume. The rates that you get depend on the volume. So the "back up" gateways end up so expensive you have no interest in even keeping them around. The rate difference would be an investment in redundancy. If Provider A goes down, I would guess you'll be grateful to have Provider B taking the failover traffic, even if costs you an extra 2.9% in transaction costs. You'd keep feeding Provider B the minimally-acceptable amount of traffic at the higher price point to keep that redundancy alive.