...

Please people, we must stop abstructions to keep the market open and competitive.

Can you spell "economies of scale"? Or "using fiber at cost means owning the fiber"? If you want to play the backbone game you've got to own long-haul transmission facilities.

A small backbone provider simply cannot be competitive; no more than neighbour garage can compete with Chrysler.

There are backbone providers and there are providers of specialized ISP or hosting or security etc. services that need independent* IP address space and do not have to waste resources on building a private "backbone". I had thought predicting consolidation in the Internet services market was an exclusive realm of only the clueless "market research" firms. Even they seem to be wisening up. --- *So they can avoid the slowest "backbone" of the month on an on-going basis.