Creating a consortium [akin to the NAP model] of small ISP's could easily resolve this problem, if all address space allocated to each ISP was contiguous and could be aggregated to a larger prefix.
But, this would require working with your direct competition in your local geographic area.
Ain't gonna happen.
No way, No How.
Why not? We already have competing TV stations sharing an antenna site, and competing newspapers sharing a printing press and distribution mechanism. I don't see why ISPs couldn't do something similar where it's in everybody's interest.
Newspapers and TV stations are content providers, only a few ISPs are content providers. ISPs are more "packet movers" than anything else, so it comes down to who can move packets the best, not who has more appealing packets. And this boils down to technical competance. I can only see "Internet Content" providers banding together. Scott -- smace@neosoft.com - KC5NUA - Scott Mace - Network Engineer - Neosoft Inc. Any opinions expressed are mine.