[LINK] passing on the cost of web traffic?

[Michael Lean]

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U.S. FACES BIG BILL FOR INTERNATIONAL WEB TRAFFIC
The International Telecommunication Union is asking U.S. telecom carriers
to pay up -- and Washington, with support from Canada, the U.K. and a few
other countries, is arguing that the current Internet traffic system
doesn't need fixing. At issue is the cost of providing Internet access both
from the U.S. to other countries, and from those countries to U.S.-based
Web sites. Currently, both outgoing and incoming costs are borne entirely
by foreign telecom carriers, through a system that was set up when 95% of
the Web sites were based in the U.S. and almost all international traffic
was generated by foreign users seeking access to those sites. But the ITU
is now warning that with the growth of cross-border Internet traffic and
e-commerce, poorer countries could soon find themselves forking over up to
$5 billion a year to pay for Internet traffic generated by users in the
U.S. North America now hosts about two-thirds of Internet sites, with 25%
located in Europe and about 10% in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. has
argued that the issue of cost-sharing is best left alone by international
regulators, especially because there is as yet no agreed-upon method of
measuring traffic for payment allocation purposes. (Financial Times 27 Sep
2000)
http://news.ft.com/news/industries/infotechnology

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