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Tier 3 isps buy connectivity from other ISPs. Tier 2 ISPs buy for connectivity to some part of the internet, the rest they access by peering agreement with another ISPs (that's they agree to accept traffic with each other as long as the destination is either their own network or a network of a paying client (another ISP)). Tier 1 ISPs have peering agreements with other ISPs so that they can send traffic to the whole of internet just via the peering. They also have very large networks to begin with.
It's interesting that connectivity is mutual, but the payment has a direction (usually from the smaller to the bigger player).
I could imagine there being infrastructure or other enormous fixed costs involved in getting it to work at all, but in principle the signal and data should be accessible to anyone. At least it seems like that should be true.
I mean someone had to pay to run the lines, right? and the lines that cross the oceans, too. I think we all must pay for access to offset those costs
If it were just access to that infrastructure alone, I'd understand...sort of.
Unless it's in a literal physical location, like on the IT Crowd, it's more than simply access to a confined thing.
I think there’s just a higher level ISP that provides to those ISPs. But then that leads to the next question - where do they get it from?!