[net.general] How many net news readers there are

bobvan (12/30/82)

This network is growing by leaps an bounds.  Dave Ihnat recently got to
wondering how many net news readers there are out there and I
volunteered to do a survey.  (Dave was right -- I never have been in
the Navy.)

For the last month or so, news administrators have been sending me
counts of the number of active net news readers on their machines.
With about 35% of the sites reporting, the average has been running
about 23.5 active net news readers per site.  If we assume the 35% who
did report are a representative sample, we can multiply 23.5 the 376
sites on the last map to get about 8,800 net news readers.  That's a
risky assumption at best, but I doubt if it throws the result off by more
than a factor of 2 to 1.

This is my last submission from this site.  I'm returning to school and
can be reached at uiucdcs!bobvan.

	Bob Van Valzah