On   Sat,   21    Sep   1996   04:28:55   -0500    "Ingrid   H.   Shafer"
<[log in to unmask]> said:
 
>European sites take no more time to load than my local provider 40 miles
>down the turnpike.
 
EXCUSE ME??? If that's  really the case, maybe you need  to find a better
local provider! Overseas access worked great  when we upgraded from 2M to
34M  (which  I am  sorry  to  report only  happened  because  of an  IETF
conference being hosted in Europe). It takes a while for traffic to catch
up to a factor  of 17 increase. Now it has caught up,  and in 2 months it
will  be  completely unbearable.  Since  the  network  is funded  by  the
governments in Europe,  people have to go to the  ministry of Research or
Education or whatever and say "Uh, the Internet is becoming more and more
popular, so, uh, please triple our  budget again like last year, thanks!"
On top of that,  the money is for more US  connectivity, which is exactly
what the politicians do not want to  hear. The US is the last place where
they  want  their research  networking  infrastructure  to be  developed,
everything should be  done within Europe. Significant  energy is expended
developing hypocritical  plans to  collect the necessary  money for  a US
line. For  instance, you can tell  the politicians you want  to develop a
state of  the art networking  infrastructure for whatever region  in your
country has the highest and most chronical degree of unemployment. Having
this, you  need to upgrade  your backbone,  and this includes  all lines,
even the US line,  and here is the cost. You end  up upgrading a national
backbone  that is  maybe 10%  used to  start with,  just so  you can  get
funding for the international lines your need. So, we're pretty much like
a family of 8 trying to fit into  a Buggy somehow. The last thing we need
is people who  own a Buick hopping  into our Buggy on the  basis that the
Buick doesn't appear to go any faster when stuck in traffic! :-)
 
  Eric