Is anyone actually USING IP QoS?

Tue May 18 19:31:33 UTC 1999

steriley at microsoft.com said:
> There is absolutely no technological reason why international rates
> are so much higher than domestic US rates. 

?? Last time I looked the cost of transatlantic / transpacific cable
laying (per strand) was rather more than the cost of land-based cables.
There are lots of reasons for this which are primarilly technology
based (like what equipment works under water).

There are actually 2 differences: Firstly political ones to do with
circuits crossing country borders, and who is paying for the circuit,
and then the ones to do with geography and resultant tecnological
factors.

Intra-European bandwidth now appears to be as commoditized (if not
more) than intra-US bandwidth. Certainly there are *more* suppliers
of European IRU and dark fiber with live or soon-to-be-live network
(provided you only want to go to London, Amsterdam, Paris & Frankfurt)
than (say) you can buy NY, WDC, SF, LA.

However, removing political obstacles and introducing competition does
not also remove the atlantic.

-- 
Alex Bligh
GX Networks (formerly Xara Networks)