The issue is that (as shown by Level3 [1]) the congestion isn't really at the intranet but within regional ISP networks. The regional ISPs (Comcast/TWC etc) rea

The issue is that (as shown by Level3 [1]) the congestion isn't really at the intranet but within regional ISP networks. The regional ISPs (Comcast/TWC etc) realized that actually not spending money to augment their networks to accommodate for the traffic can be more profitable than actually providing a better service to their customers. When the traffic on their network is congested, they can force companies like Netflix to actually run a fiber directly to their data center not only they can have Netflix pay for it (and therefore they don't have to pay anything to their uplink (such as Level3 and others), they also will receive money from these companies in order to not throttle their traffic. And they can do all that only because they have regional monopoly, and users don't have anywhere else to go. [1] http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-internet-middleman/ http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-inte...