Google - "we invite content providers to hook up their networks directly to ours"

A post to Google's Fiber blog by Jeffrey Burgan, Director of Network Engineering, describes what Google does to eliminate "buffering" without paid Fast Lanes - "We also partner with content providers (like YouTube, Netflix, and Akamai) to make the rest of your video’s journey shorter and faster. (This doesn't involve any deals to prioritize their video ‘packets’ over others or otherwise discriminate among Internet traffic — we don't do that)"

One question remains - what about all other content providers? how would startups compete with the giants?

"So that your video doesn’t get caught up in this possible congestion, we invite content providers to hook up their networks directly to ours. This is called ‘peering,’ and it gives you a more direct connection to the content that you want .. We have also worked with services like Netflix so that they can ‘colocate’ their equipment in our Fiber facilities .. We give companies like Netflix and Akamai free access to space and power in our facilities and they provide their own content servers .. we also don’t charge because it’s really a win-win-win situation. It’s good for content providers because they can deliver really high-quality streaming video to their customers .. most importantly, we do this because it gives Fiber users the fastest, most direct route to their content"

See "Behind the scenes with Google Fiber: Working with content providers to minimize buffering" - here.