You're definitely making the best counter points in this discussion. Unfortunately, I'm only familiar with peering agreements in so much that I can read about t

You're definitely making the best counter points in this discussion. Unfortunately, I'm only familiar with peering agreements in so much that I can read about them on Wikepedia and follow links. The peering agreements are private, so we don't know who pays who. Your questions regarding the fees for bandwidth are especially relevant. More things I can't address, because I don't know Comcast's costs for transport or last mile. When I say that consumers won't/don't want a metered internet plan, I'm basing this on what's in the market and basic consumer tendencies toward simplicity. Metered services have a tendency to make customers feel "nickel & dime'd". Put plainly, consumers will choose a flat rate service over a metered service, even if the metered service would result in a lower bill [1]. It's basic risk aversion. I'm of the opinion that "free market" ISP solutions aren't working out all that well. The necessity of public land-use rights in order to reach the last mile severely limits competition in the ISP space. I think that a good first step toward fixing the problem would be forcing some more transparency on ISPs. I'd love to know what's going on behind closed doors. I'd love to know who pays who. I'd love to know just how Comcast's transport costs break down. Until we know some of these details, it's mostly speculation (yes, especially on my part), but I think there are some reasonable assumptions to be made. 1 - http://www.canavents.com/its2008/abstracts/109.pdf http://www.canavents.com/its2008/abstracts/109.pdf