steriley@microsoft.com said:
There is absolutely no technological reason why international rates are so much higher than domestic US rates.
?? Last time I looked the cost of transatlantic / transpacific cable laying (per strand) was rather more than the cost of land-based cables. There are lots of reasons for this which are primarilly technology based (like what equipment works under water). There are actually 2 differences: Firstly political ones to do with circuits crossing country borders, and who is paying for the circuit, and then the ones to do with geography and resultant tecnological factors. Intra-European bandwidth now appears to be as commoditized (if not more) than intra-US bandwidth. Certainly there are *more* suppliers of European IRU and dark fiber with live or soon-to-be-live network (provided you only want to go to London, Amsterdam, Paris & Frankfurt) than (say) you can buy NY, WDC, SF, LA. However, removing political obstacles and introducing competition does not also remove the atlantic. -- Alex Bligh GX Networks (formerly Xara Networks)