I see your point - but it's their content (or content they are being paid to serve at least). Cogent carries data between ISPs regardless of origin/destination for many of their runs -- while they are being paid by their clients for access to their network, Comcast can also push a significant amount of data destined for non Cogent customers through their lines. If you're only offering routes for your customers, you're not offering the ISP anything that you don't benefit from.
I would think rules enforcing net neutrality would explicitly not allow this. If I am a small time host with 20 clients, a host with 5000 clients shouldn't get a direct connection for free while I would need to pay. Both my clients and their clients are equally affected.
> Cogent carries data between ISPs regardless of origin/destination for many of their runs -- while they are being paid by their clients for access to their network, Comcast can also push a significant amount of data destined for non Cogent customers through their lines. If you're only offering routes for your customers, you're not offering the ISP anything that you don't benefit from.
All ISP will only carry traffic that's either from their customers or to their customers.
Heztner isn't arguing that they are large enough to be worth getting a free connection but that their providers Level 3 and NTT are worth it to get a connection to Comcast's customers (not every ISP connected to Comcast) at a reasonable expense.
The issue is that Comcast / insert other residential ISPs have a monopoly on access to their own customers and the large ones can charge for that.
I would think rules enforcing net neutrality would explicitly not allow this. If I am a small time host with 20 clients, a host with 5000 clients shouldn't get a direct connection for free while I would need to pay. Both my clients and their clients are equally affected.