I'm working with a Japanese Company and for the first time realize what it means to say the Internet is Global. This company has a Tier 1 domestic backbone in Japan (covering the country of Japan and connecting to the Japanese major peering points). They also have partial ownership in undersea cables (fiber)that extend from Japan to the United States and Japan to the UK. So bandwidth and networking are not the problem. I'm sure my information is dated, but at one point I thought that 80% of all Internet traffic gets switched in the United States. Now, having studied the traffic patterns for our Japanese company and how much of the traffic stays in country, I would say I need to see some more data. But, I think I can safely say the United States handles the "lions share" of the global IP traffic, and will continue to do so until distributing hosting and caching make an impact. However, The NA in NANOG shouldn't apply any more. Political issues aside, at least ICANN saw fit to established three governing bodies for naming, ARIN, RIPE/NCC and APNIC. I write this more of an appeal, as this Japanese company wants to establish peering (not transit) in the US, and although by name, I recognize many of the "good old boys" in the Internet Tier 1 Backbone discussions, I am not one of them. I have read this list for some time now, but this is my first post. I have seen conversations ranging from graduate school discussions to school yard scuffles, so I am ready for my share of daggers. My question is, how does the Internet get opened up to new International companies, such as the one I am working for? I know this has been tried before via Savvis and a recent group that I know Exodus is part of. I also recognize there is as much brilliance in NANOG as there is sarcasm. If this was a business issue, the suits would have made their zillions and moved on, which is why I'm writing NANOG. Thank You, Craig Klingler klingler@onramp.net