tmb@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel) (06/26/89)
Several (random) observations, questions, and comments: o It seems somehow wrong that unido could try to impose any re-distribution restrictions on USENET articles. Implicitly (and some of them explicitly) USENET articles are freely redistributable but still copyright by the authors. o German sites could (and some of them probably do) save substantial amounts of long distance charges by maintaining a telephone number in the US. You can charge AT&T calls originating in Germany to a US calling card and get AT&T rates (although they are not the lowest possible rates). You can also use callback to get direct-dial rates to/from the US. o I'm not quite sure how a German site would (legally) connect to a modem in the US. I would assume that there are no Bundespost approved modems that understand US (e.g. Bell) modem protocols, and that a site in Germany that wanted to talk to a site in the US would have to hook up a US modem illegally to the German telephone system. How does this work? Are there actually "legal" 9600/19.2k modems in Germany? o The idea of a central backbone (unido) charging for all of a country's USENET traffic seems wrong. The costs that unido has for pulling articles over the Atlantic should be redistributed equally among its immediate neighbors in Germany. Each neighbor could then decide to let other hosts connect to them and redistribute their costs further. Central network administration (just like central economic planning) always seems like a good idea at first but from all the examples I have seen always fails miserably. Thomas.
billc@mirror.UUCP (Bill Callahan) (06/27/89)
In article <3202@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu> tmb@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel) writes:
-o The idea of a central backbone (unido) charging for all of a country's
- USENET traffic seems wrong. The costs that unido has for pulling articles
- over the Atlantic should be redistributed equally among its immediate
- neighbors in Germany. Each neighbor could then decide to let other
- hosts connect to them and redistribute their costs further.
- Central network administration (just like central economic planning)
- always seems like a good idea at first but from all the examples I
- have seen always fails miserably.
I agree with this point (as well as many of the other ones) quite
wholeheartedly. I understand that unido has costs from getting a
U.S. newsfeed which need to be redistributed, but it seems that they
have chosen one redistribution scheme which they choose to maintain
and enforce, when the possibility exists that another would be
superior. The one that Mr. Breuel suggests (having unido only
charge its immediate neighbors) seems to have a lot of advantages.
One of them is that it takes the burden of enforcement off the
shoulders of unido. All they have to do is make sure that the sites
they supply directly pay for the service. If a site fails to pay
up, they can cut the feed directly. None of this "blacklisting."
I am aware that the immediate neighbors would have to pay a steep
connect fee, but they can defray the cost by charging connect fees
to *their* downstream neighbors. A well connected secondary site
could wind up gettting news for *free*, which is fair, since it's
providing a service. A little leaf site way downstream may get
articles several days late, be probably would have to pay very
little for the connection, plus local calling costs, of course.
Ultimately, I think a system like this could lead to fairer cost
distribution, higher connectivity, and a much simpler (i.e., market
oriented) administration.kenny@felix.UUCP (Kenny `ophidiomaniac' Paul) (06/29/89)
In article <3202@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu> tmb@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel) writes: >o I'm not quite sure how a German site would (legally) connect to a > modem in the US. I would assume that there are no Bundespost approved > modems that understand US (e.g. Bell) modem protocols, and that a > site in Germany that wanted to talk to a site in the US would have to > hook up a US modem illegally to the German telephone system. Through the proper channels, our German office was able to get a 1200 baud modem that had no problem speaking to our Racal-Vadics. The bigger problem was the poor quality of the phone lines. They (Germany) had been waiting over nine months to get the modem, and it was evident within minutes that there was no way we could transfer large amounts of data. It took a while to convince my German associate of this. Ya gotta love that there Bundespost! Regards, Kenny hplabs!felix!kenny