to end, the latency should improve. The majors/tier1s like AT&T, UUnet, Genuity and C&W provide SLAs "end-to-end" *within* their ASN. They control the pipes, they know what they can take and they don't have to worry about some overloaded peering link. So as consolidation takes place, we should see better latencies and better SLAs. --- One could also make the argument, that if the number of major players consolidates to say <=4 [like ages past], the pressure the market will be able to place will be significantly reduced. The trend in oligopolies is managed competition, or competition limited to a few markets and no competition in smaller/less interesting markets. In otherwords, there won't be much reason for these companies to make significant or even progressive improvements to their SLAs. This is, of course, the devil's advocate position. Regards, Deepak Jain AiNET