The brouhaha between Cogent and Level 3 that threatens to end the two companies' Internet peering arrangement has focused attention on interconnection arrangements in the long-haul communications backbone market segment. If you aren't familiar with that dispute among peers, read about it here and here.

And, just in the nick of time, if you are really into connecting the interconnection dots, my colleague Richard Levine and I have published a special report, "Interconnection Without Regulation: Lesson Learned FromFour Network Industries". This report examines how interconnection works--almost always without regulatory intervention--in four network industry market segments: the Internet backbone; airlines, ATMs, and railroads.

I think the lessons learned should be instructive as policymakers on the Hill and at the FCC consider new interconnection policies for telecom. But you'll have to read the report for yourself to see if you agree!