I think faster routers and bigger pipes will will not solve this problem. As a friend likes to say, that is necessary but not sufficient. HWB is right when he says that the network design is not coping. He left out tools, operations and customer support. I think there is some percentage of the service providers out there who don't care about the service they provide, but I believe (hope) that the mejority really do care. I don't know of a provider who's technical staff is big enough. They all have .45*current staff in open jobs. Until there is a sufficent engineering pool to handle the growth or the growth stops for long enough to catch up, we are stuck being more than a day late. (Hell, several of them have stooped low enough to offer me a job.) Both my direct experience and the discussions I have say that dollars, pounds, dmarks and yen are not the problem. Jerry