The location of that server is not a technical issue, it's a political one. True. And it will stay that way on this continent, where for ages and ages already national issues have dominated what
Sorry, I don't understand something. Why cannot a region set up a root name server for its private use? Users who can reach it fast are advised to put the address of this server into named cache file, others not. Generally peoples might select a appropriate set of root name servers and put them into cache file. This might be the menu: "Veeery official" servers: a.root-servers.net ... i.root-servers.net "Official" continental servers: a.europe.root-servers.net b.europe.root-servers.net k.europe.root-servers.net q.asia.root-servers.net "Semi-official" regional servers: s.north.europe.root-servers.net n.south.europe.root-servers.net "International ISP" servers: provider1.west.europe.root-servers.net provider2.west.europe.root-servers.net etc. There would be suggested root NS sets tailored for each region. Asian resolvers probably are not interested in a European root NS and vice versa. The only thing to discuss whether Internic does allow to download the zonefile for these hosts. Semi-official and International ISP servers may be tertiary root name servers even. OK, this idea may be junk. I just wished to start a brainstorming. Keep flame on minimum. Thanks for your patience. Gabor ------- Another funny idea, related to this one: The DNS itself could store a pointer to a suggested cache file specific to the requestor's address. (And a version number too.) E.g. cache.arpa. TXT "14,ftp://ftp.internic.net/pub/SOME_FILE" 193.cache.arpa. TXT "71,ftp://ftp.ripe.net/root-ns/europe.cache" 6.193.cache.arpa. TXT "4,ftp://ftp.hungarnet.hu/pub/hungarnet.cache" Users are suggested to find the longest name matching your address, and use cache file pointed by it.