http://www.vox.com/2014/5/6/5678080/voxsplaining-telecom
I think this is a pretty good article that explains what's at stake if the Comcast/Time Warner merger is allowed to go through.
It's a horrible idea, but unfortunately like most horrible ideas that benefit a large business it will probably happen.
Over the last four years, Comcast has engaged in a campaign to undermine the bill-and-keep system. The effort first came to public attention in 2010. Level 3 had just signed a contract to host Netflix content, and Level 3 asked Comcast to upgrade a connection between them to accommodate the higher traffic. Level 3 expected this to be an easy sell since Comcast had previously paid Level 3 for transit service. But instead, Comcast demanded that Level 3 pay it for the costs of the upgrade.
Since then, Comcast has evidently begun demanding that other transit and content providers pay it for faster connections too. "Every day I have someone come up to me and say 'Comcast came up to us asking for money,'" says Tim Wu, the Columbia law professor who coined the term "network neutrality."
Comcast itself has been silent on the details of these agreements, but the company's defenders take it for granted that transit providers should be paying Comcast, not the other way around. For example, Dan Rayburn has argued that "the reason for the poor [Netflix] quality streaming is that Cogent refuses to pay Comcast to add more capacity." This, of course, is begging the question. Why should Cogent pay Comcast to deliver content that Comcast customers requested in the first place?
I think this is a pretty good article that explains what's at stake if the Comcast/Time Warner merger is allowed to go through.
It's a horrible idea, but unfortunately like most horrible ideas that benefit a large business it will probably happen.