Level3 must think that their business would be better off with regulatory oversight of peering, or they would not have taken this action. Comcast should realize that, of the three potential motives for their recent actions I have previously outlined, #1 and #3 are not just highly unlikely, but would be practically impossible in a regulated environment. As such, they should further realize that their peering committee is driven by motive #2, ego, and find the best way to change their position without losing too much credibility.
-- Jeff S Wheeler <jsw@inconcepts.biz> Sr Network Operator / Innovative Network Concepts
Or maybe Level(3) thinks the entire game could potentially change and are attempting to head that off at the pass. What if instead of the end users paying for Internet service, the content providers did. Sort of like broadcast TV where the broadcasters pay the freight and the user simply turns on their device and they get content. In that model, the providers of the traffic pay the delivery costs of the content. So you would have "consumer" access that is mainly paid for by the content providers and "business" access which would be paid by the end users but would have less "consumer" traffic such as Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, etc. If you look at the revenues being reported by some of these content providers, someone might be looking at those numbers saying "why *shouldn't* they pay? They are making money from the end users via ad sales just like broadcasters do, why shouldn't the model be the same?". I am not making any statement of my opinion, simply looking at a possibility. If there were such a sea change, Level3 now being a major content provider might find its long range plans have had a wrench thrown in them.