If backbones buy each other up, that could result in one dominant backbone. There is no dominant backbone now, Kende says, and existing anti-trust regulations should prevent one emerging through acquisition. Kende argues that backbones paying each other for interconnections is not necessarily a bad thing. When backbones peer to interconnect, they pay for their own equipment and transmission, but traffic is freely exchanged. In a transit agreement, one backbone pays another to interconnect.
Transit carries an advantage, though.
If one backbone is paying another, the supplier backbone will provide the paying backbone access to all of its peering partners. A hybrid transit-peering approach often is adapted by the top five backbones. Kende argues that backbones will decide which type of agreement to pursue based on the benefits they'll receive. There are now 42 backbones since the backbone was privatized in 1995. Fiber also is abundantly available, leading to more backbones and more ISPs.