sewilco@mecc.UUCP (Scot E. Wilcoxon) (10/13/86)
(Followups to: net.news.adm) In article <547@meccsd.UUCP> ahby@meccsd.UUCP (Shane P. McCarron) writes: >>I telephoned the business office of the telephone company in Minneapolis and >>asked them about this. They said that only residential phone service has free >>local calls, and that business telephones are metered. The metering formula >>was complex, and they were unwilling to quote me a rate without knowing the >>exchange from which the call was being made. > >I didn't know that our business phones are metered, and in fact I find >it awfully hard to believe. I know that we pay more for our business >trunks than you would for a residential line, but I was pretty sure it >was a flat rate. >... Brian and the Minneapolis phone company must have misunderstood each other. For single-line business service there are three kinds of phone service: unlimited, time-sensitive ("measured"), and call-sensitive ("message"). Monthly rates increase as distance from Minneapolis/St. Paul increase. PBX trunks are unlimited except for some hotels. There are many other special services and I assume the person Brian spoke with in Minneapolis somehow got confused. The Mpls/St Paul metropolitan area is thought to be the world's largest local calling area, with a radius of about 40 miles. The town of Hudson in Wisconsin is considering joining us. >As to long distance links, we really do have only 1. Ihnp4 no longer >... >Anyway, the upshot of this is that there is very little long distance >calling going on that has a measurable (per minute) cost associated >with it. Costs may be reduced even further. One company in Minneapolis has multiplexed leased data lines which go to USENET-active cities across the country and is working on using one in the evening for USENET and mail. >here in MN. We do have a unique community, in that it is very small, and >we are able to get together and work things out pretty easily. However, I >think that the things we have done here could be done anywhere with just a >little bit of effort. After the monthly meeting of the Unix Users of Minnesota, 15-20 of the state's USENET or site administrators meet and tune the network. Having half the people running the network in one place tends to make things happen fast. A mailing list for administrators is also in use, as are state newsgroups for general use, sources (mostly repostings), map updates, and tests. The state newsgroups have more news links than the tree-shaped USENET feeds, so we might be able to communicate despite a major site outage. Most of the major MN sites are running 2.10.3 (compressed batches) with some tuning for performance. Shane was too modest to mention that he did a fair amount of that tuning (that's Minnesotan for "he worked hard on it and accomplished a lot"), but he'll be posting to mod.sources the 2.11 version of his major addition. The MN net, just like the national one, constantly has to deal with changes in link quality, system changes, and administrative decisions. The MN net has smoothly undergone two major reorganizations in the past year. One of the major sites is about to make a major change which might affect the quality of their feeds, but any problems can be corrected within two days. The key seems to be in keeping all site administrators informed, as they'll usually initiate action to correct any problems. The USENET backbone must be doing this. What are other clusters of sites doing? -- Scot E. Wilcoxon Minn Ed Comp Corp {quest,dicome,meccts}!mecc!sewilco 45 03 N 93 08 W (612)481-3507 ihnp4!meccts!mecc!sewilco Laws are society's common sense, recorded for the stupid. The alert question everything, and most laws are obvious to them.
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (10/16/86)
In article <642@mecc.UUCP> sewilco@mecc.UUCP (Scot E. Wilcoxon) writes: > The key seems to be in keeping all site administrators informed, as > they'll usually initiate action to correct any problems. The USENET > backbone must be doing this. What are other clusters of sites doing? Well, maybe I'm not seeing the Big Picture, but it sure seems like here in New York, things are a lot less organized. I've never met most of the SA's at the sites we talk to. On a couple of occasions, I've tried to organize a get-together of the SA's in New York City, but the interest just doesn't seem to be there. To be sure, there are a few people who will bend over backwards to give you a hand, but for the most part you're on your own. Oh well, that's life in The Big Apple. On the other hand, the Mets just beat Houston, so I guess things aren't too bad. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016