The U.S. Internet Peering Ecosystem went through three significant disruptions in or about 2001:

1.Cable Companies Peer. The North American cable companies’ Internet transit provider (@Home) went bankrupt in 2001, forcing the cable companies to build out and manage their own multi-gigabit-per-second Internet infrastructure with only 30 days notice. With peer-2-peer traffic representing 40% to 60% of their transit bill, they quickly recognized the benefits of peering that traffic directly with each other.

2.The Large Scale Network Savvy Content Providers entered into the Peering Ecosystem as their traffic volume grew into the ten’s of gigabits-per-second. By engaging in peering directly with the Tier 2 ISPs, both groups were able to improve performance and lower their transit expenses while enhancing and increasing control over the end-user experience.

3.MSOs peer with Content. Since then, the cable companies peer directly with each other and with the large scale content companies. Several of these content companies have evolved their peering infrastructure to include global backbones and hundreds of peering sessions.

Peering directly saved these companies at least $1 million dollars a year each and it is estimated that this early wave of disruption to the Peering Ecosystem resulted in at least 100Gbps of peered traffic.

2001-2003 The U.S. Peering Ecosystem expands in the middle.