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The shifting of the traffic flows is changing at roughly the same rate on BOTH sides, not because of one sides business model.

Yes. And I don't pretend to have all the answers here and I don't intend to imply that only one type of provider should pay the other type. Let's remember that any two peers are exchanging traffic at several points in the network. But the only situation in which a dialup provider and a webhosting provider will not have problematic asymmetry is when both providers have POPs in the same set of cities and both providers have private exchange points in every one of those cities. Then, although there would be asymmetry of traffic flows, if you go by my model where only inter-city transit has a value, there would be no value asymmetry in this situation.

I think city is too narrow a term in this situation. I think your proposal could have merit if we consider it in terms of Metros. Further, I think we can both agree that it is not necessary or efficient for both content and access providers to build out networks to every little podunk town. I think that we can effectively address the issues if we agree that the provider receiving more than they transmit should be able to require of their peer who is transmitting more than they receive to connect at whichever metros the receiving provider deems necessary. I would define a Metro as a contiguous geographical area with a population density greater than N people per square mile and a total population over P. I don't have the value of N or P off the top of my head, but it would be some value such that it would eliminate Red Bluff, CA, Needles, CA, Chambersburgh, VA, but would include Phoenix, Albuquerque (sp?), Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco and San Jose are close enough together and the area in between is contiguous high density, so they would be one metro), Sacremento, etc. I think the access provider can appropriately charge his customers to cover the cost of getting traffic to/from the nearest Metro to/from the customer. I think the content provider can charge his customers to cover the cost of getting traffic to/from wherever they are hosting said customers servers to/from the metro closest to the requestor.

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Generally, the purchaser pays shipping in almost all commerce. This has been true for a very long time.

I hesitate to draw parallels between the movement of atoms and that of electrons.

Fair enough, however, I was not the one who started that part of the thread. Owen