Peering Among Content-Dominated Vertical ISPs

Content providers (CPs) typically control the digital content consumption services and are getting the most revenue by implementing an “all-you-can-eat” model via subscription or hyper-targeted advertisements. Revamping the existing Internet architecture and design, a vertical integration where a CP and access Internet service provider (ISP) will act as unibody in a sugarcane form seems to be the recent trend. In this letter, using the U.S. as a case study, we show the overlaps between access ISPs and CPs to explore the viability of a future in terms of peering between these new emerging content-dominated sugarcane ISPs and the healthiness of Internet economics.