It's get the video stream via the Internet and pay exchange fees with other carriers, or private peer. It's why Akamai, Level3 and others were welcomed into telco data centers - it reduces their out-of-network costs. It was a smart and suitable solution of YouTube to deploy fiber and focus on private peering to major telcos/cable. It saved everyone a lot of money and provided a way to scale, without crushing the Internet. Hats off to them.
Why telcos would want to private peer with YouTube
It's get the video stream via the Internet and pay exchange fees with other carriers, or private peer. It's why Akamai, Level3 and others were welcomed into telco data centers - it reduces their out-of-network costs. It was a smart and suitable solution of YouTube to deploy fiber and focus on private peering to major telcos/cable. It saved everyone a lot of money and provided a way to scale, without crushing the Internet. Hats off to them.