Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S. / New York Times, 29 August 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
"The era of the American Internet is ending.
Invented by American computer scientists during the 1970s, the Internet has been embraced around the globe. During the network’s first three decades, most Internet traffic flowed through the United States. In many cases, data sent between two locations within a given country also passed through the United States...."