Provider credibility - does it matter? was Re: Inter-provider relations

Fri Oct 25 17:32:30 UTC 1996

On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Jim Dixon wrote:

> > 1) How many US ISP's customers would notice if vbc.net fell off the
> > net?
> > 
> > 2) How many of vbc.net's customers would notice if the USA fell off
> > the net?
> 
> There is a name for this ridiculous style of argument, but I don't 
> remember it ...

Xenophobia. Look it up.

> 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.

I would say that if transatlantic lines are mostly ordered and paid for by
European companies that you are probably correct. But part of the reason
is that European government run PTT's charge horrendously high rates for
international circuits.

Remember when Europe's economy was subsidized heavily by its colonies?
The Internet is a similar colonial economy and it can't last forever.

Michael Dillon                   -               ISP & Internet Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com