I'd be very, very surprised if such major companies such as Sony were to stop all operations because of events?
Cost is a non issue, I pay the same as a Japanese player to play the game, but I get far less play time because all scheduled maintenance favors JST.
Furthermore, we North Americans, in fact already pay more for a lesser service, as our pings to any and all of these world servers are terrible at best.
unprofessional. nuff said.