It would be to the european comany's advantage, IF
A/ they could not peer with the transit provider(s) for the desired customer base
B/ they gained more benefit from reaching the customer base than it cost them
Ah, as per the other mail in this thread, maybe the words transit and peering have been mixed up. I should really be referring to peering. And from that point, as and when the two peers have additional good paths to offer each other, they can be exchanged in some amicable way, until eventually this thing called transit happens. For a pair of ISP/NSPs this can be a gradual process, and you should not be betting your company on a "free" transit arrangement. I think.
It is in their interest to have better connectivity, but perhaps not to the tune of $8M/year. Besides, as is alluded to earlier, who needs it more, the US or the europeans? I'd like to see some middle ground, but I can see and understand the mentality of the US-centric actions.
Sad I know.
True.... US companys would prefer to send traffic to Europe over someone else's lines if the quality was high enough.
You mean they actually consider quality over "free" ? I don't think so.
Perhaps if the European company offered to transit European traffic for them? :-)
That carrot has been there before... no help - Europe is this small *country* over the sea as far at these peopl are concerned. The really sad thing is that while international lines between European countries cost so much (the T1 cost from London to New York is about the same as an E1 from London to Paris/Amsterdam/Stockholm etc) it is easier for people to buy more bandwidth to the US rather than European IX's - which would be (a) sensible and (b) the "stick" to demonstrate to the US NSPs that "we don't need them" - note the quotes.
Just to add a bit to that, the US Government could force providers to peer with all providers meeting certain requirements (enter telco history) but I think there would be difficulty requiring them to peer with non-US companies.
Hmm. I don't think I wish that even on them ;) Regards, -- Peter Galbavy peter@wonderland.org @ Home phone://44/973/499465 in Wonderland http://www.wonderland.org/~peter/ snail://UK/NW1_6LE/London/21_Harewood_Avenue/