[waps]

Just stating the obvious here, but "Rule #1" obviously doesn't apply to service provider networks, who are specifically built so other people's equipment can be connected on almost every point. Customers on the access layer. Datacenters, colocation and these sorts of boxes on the distribution layer, and peers on the "gateway"/peering layers.

The second paragraph is wrong too, there are much closer relationships possible. They're much deeper than that today, and I would expect in the future to see CDNs much deeper in provider networks.