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[–] on_the_nightshift ago 

You are misinformed about mobile carrier peering agreements. Not all agreements are simply for link/port speed and only billed on the difference in traffic between the two ends. Most mobile carrier traffic doesn't traverse peering connections, but connections to tier 1 ISPs, where they are billed per MB/GB. As eyeball networks, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90%+ of their traffic is from the internet toward the subscriber, which is why they don't use the kind of direct peering you are talking about for the vast majority of their traffic. This doesn't even mention the cost of getting the data to the customer from the ISP across the WAN to the carrier's MTSO, then across the backhaul to the cellsite, and finally across the wireless spectrum to the phone. Bandwidth in the wireless spectrum is limited and extremely expensive to purchase and deploy.

Put simply, the amount of data used by customers DOES cost the mobile carrier money, and the costs are pretty huge if they have a large customer base. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see data on mobile networks come down in price, but it isn't going to for a while, and that isn't simply due to greed.

Source: I am a network engineer for a mobile carrier (not TMo) who works on this stuff every day..

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[–] Drenki ago 

I wouldn't say I'm misinformed so much as I know enough to understand why the current system is bad and wrong. I used to work for an ISP, but non-mobile, as well and was involved in reviewing the contracts when necessary. (I also have peers who have worked for smaller, private cell service ISPs)

With more people using their phones for voice and video calls, it's they're becoming less and less eyeball networks. If I am using my phone to stream to Twitch or YouTube, I'm definitely having an impact on the net flow.

I absolutely get how mobile spectrum is limited and what a huge pain in the ass it is to try to cover the ENTIRE United States. It's just a big damn mess because of how population density varies.

I side with the camp that says internet is more like a common carrier utility - I mean, that's how it started out. If the US had standardized its networking technologies and devices were able to hop from one network to another, we'd have great coverage by now.