On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Jim Dixon wrote:
1) How many US ISP's customers would notice if vbc.net fell off the net?
2) How many of vbc.net's customers would notice if the USA fell off the net?
There is a name for this ridiculous style of argument, but I don't remember it ...
Xenophobia. Look it up.
Europe heavily subsidizes the US Internet. It's not just VBCnet: the European Internet community pays something like 90% of the costs of traffic between Europe and North America. The same applies to the rest of the world.
I would say that if transatlantic lines are mostly ordered and paid for by European companies that you are probably correct. But part of the reason is that European government run PTT's charge horrendously high rates for international circuits. Remember when Europe's economy was subsidized heavily by its colonies? The Internet is a similar colonial economy and it can't last forever. Michael Dillon - ISP & Internet Consulting Memra Software Inc. - Fax: +1-604-546-3049 http://www.memra.com - E-mail: michael@memra.com