On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
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. ... Have you ever considered that you might have a lot less bandwidth cost to the States if (as Jeremy Porter pointed out) the costs to run a line intra-Europe reflected the REAL COST of doing so instead of being government-sanctioned overcharging.
The number of logical hops here is a little large. The costs of doing business in Europe <yawn> do include high telecomms costs between European countries. These are (a) falling and (b) shared more or less equitably among European providers. But costs for circuits across the Atlantic are (a) borne almost entirely by European networks and (b) have nothing much to do with intra-European costs. It doesn't cost much to run fiber across a border but it costs real money to lay several thousand miles of cable. Think about it. I am not on some sort of crusade; this is not a stable arrangement and won't last. Benefits flow both ways; in time the costs will come to more or less match the benefits. Not because I say yes or you say no but because the market will adjust itself.
business. But don't give us this "Europe is subsidizing US infrastructure" dreck.
Oh, lighten up. As I said, my main point was that the Economist's model was seriously flawed. I am an American doing business in both the States and Europe, not a socialism-loving American-flag-burning Limey. ;-) I can see how the system currently works, and I know it's not going to last. -- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015 http://www.uk.vbc.net VBCnet West +1 408 971 2682 fax +1 408 971 2684