Here’s the problem with this... a lot of FReepers seem to think this is a great idea, but consider some of the consequences. Disparate networks will be maintained by disparate providers. The Chinese and Russians might maintain an Asian network, while the Asia Pacific folks (Australia, Japan, New Zealand) will have their own, the middle east and parts of eastern Europe will have one, western Europe and parts of north Africa will have one, the US will likely maintain the north American networks, and the South Americans would likely team up with Africa to create some sort of pan-Atlantic conglomerate.
The problem here is the interconnects between networks. If they are going to segregate networks, that means that the administrators of those networks, presumably governments, will restrict access into or out of those networks. I play a game called EVE online, and the core systems are based in Iceland. I don’t get too much lag in game, but when population on the server is high, it can get laggy. If the north American network and the European network are dissected and handed over to individual governments or entities, what’s to stop them from throttling bandwidth into or out of that network?
What happens when the European network goes to IPv6, but the pan-Asian network stays on IPv4 or comes up with its own addressing schemes? What happens on networks residing in countries with no funds to upgrade infrastructure or a lack of entities to support interconnectivity? Imagine, if you will, a group of Chinese hackers with the backing of the Chinese government breaking into the core routers for the South American network and taking over the ENTIRE network. Now imagine they infect every system in that network and use them to do one, gigantic DDOS attack on US servers or military interests?
This has very broad implications for security, and considering a large swath of countries in this world are ruled by despots, we will likely see entire sections of the current Internet go dark or grow VERY slow. With network segregation comes network control by powerful singular entities versus a global group of involved and interested commercial and governmental entities.
The web is supposed to be collaborative. ARPAnet was founded on collaboration and communication. To take away network ubiquity is to go back on over 30 years of progress.