hopefully they and other high-volume providers would set up mirrors *outside* the US so that folks wouldn't spend their bandwidth pulling their (uncacheable) pages in.

Or mirrors *inside* if you are already outside :)

... do HTTP traffic analysis and the business case show that selecting different locations for web servers is "worth it"?

Yes, b/w from the UK is expensive enough that we're working on a proposal to site a BBC server in the USA (and our volume isn't very high yet). Brandon -- Brandon Butterworth phone: 01737 836592 BBC Research & Development fax: 01737 832336 Kingswood Warren, Tadworth email: brandon@rd.bbc.co.uk Surrey, KT20 6NP URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/