stargate@stargate.UUCP (02/23/87)
The most important thing to note is that this initial phase of
subscription availability to Stargate is an experiment. Some of the
issues related to a future production service are impossible to define
fully until after we have experience with a reasonable-sized
experimental subscriber base in day-to-day operations. At this stage,
the subscribers we're looking for are organizations who feel that it
would interesting, useful, or even just plain fun to participate in the
early stages of a unique operation that is forging considerable new
ground in a number of areas.
Initially SIS plans to transmit virtually all of the available
moderated Usenet newsgroups and possibly some other moderated materials
from non-Usenet sources. As the volume of non-moderated material on
Usenet has continued to grow explosively, and the overall quality in
many unmoderated groups has continued to decline, it has become
increasingly obvious that moderated groups (which are continuing to
grow rapidly in popularity) are the most appropriate material for
broadcast at this stage.
We are carrying only moderated newsgroups since that's the only
reasonable manner in which we can ensure quality and manage our
transmission bandwidth. The unmoderated groups for which there is
demand also tend to be of very high volume and difficult for people to
keep up with. We're working on plans for future additional services
(e.g. highlights of unmoderated groups and the creation of more
moderated groups) over Stargate as well. Overall, Usenet netnews is
just the starting point for the sorts of services we plan to
provide--we are looking at a wide variety of information sources as
potential candidates for Stargate transmission.
Since we have very limited financial resources with which to operate
during this experimental period, SIS is not currently incorporated. We
are attempting to keep our expenses (and thusly subscription fees) to
an absolute minimum--and incorporation just does not make sense during
this early experimental phase. SIS currently exists as a sole
proprietership, in the name of the SIS business manager, Steve
Morenberg. Incorporation will occur when feasible. The issue of
profit vs. non-profit corporations is considerably more complex than it
at first appears. Creating a non-profit corporation introduces a
significant number of restrictions that could potentially impact
services in a negative manner (for example, non-competitive issues may
prevent the offering of useful services by a non-profit entity that
could be provided by a for-profit entity). There are also considerable
complications in day-to-day operations, bookeeping, etc. involved in
non-profit status. On the other hand, many firms which are
"for-profit" make little profit (or even none). It may well be the
case that from the standpoint of services, complexity, etc. it would be
easiest to be "for-profit" but to still hold fees and rates as low as
possible. We are currently investigating the details of the "profit
vs. non-profit" issues--no decisions have been made as of yet. But our
goal remains the same in either case--to keep the services being
offered priced as fairly and reasonably as possible.
Regarding transmitted material copyrights--transmissions from a system
like Stargate are best viewed as a "compilation" work. Ultimately,
some of the material will come from public sources (such as Usenet) and
other material may be locally originated by Stargate or other
entities. Regardless of origin, material broadcast through a
communications channel "not meant for reception by the general public"
(which is the category Stargate is in) can be protected through a
number of mechanisms, including contractual agreement with
subscribers.
In particular, we want to be as flexible as possible about the use of
Usenet newsgroups being transmitted by Stargate. However, we do have
some contraints. We will ultimately be paying fees for our satellite
time based on the number of subscribers, and we need to have a
significant number of paying subscribers to maintain the feasibility of
the system--it is not economically practical to maintain a satellite
system if only a few sites subscribed to the system and they simply
passed material around via dialup to many other sites.
The assumption with Stargate is that most sites with the capability of
receiving materials directly from the WTBS data feed will want to do
so. One of the important advantages of this is the receiving of
materials simultaneously with all other subscribers, with none of the
latencies or other problems associated with connection-based systems
for distributing articles. Since each subscribing site has virtually a
direct, continuous, and simultaneous link with the central node, the
ability of Stargate to provide information on a timely basis is
unsurpassed. We realize that some sites will be unable for technical
reasons to tie-in directly with the WTBS-based system. We are working
on plans to allow those sites to receive materials from other sites
that do subscribe directly to Stargate, with a fee schedule adjusted to
take this situation into account.
Of course, in the long run the amount of information being sent by
Stargate may be so large that such "non-direct" sites would be unable
to receive all materials, and of course such sites will also be
receiving all materials later than direct subscribers, reducing their
ability to participate in discussions in a timely manner.
We need to encourage as many sites as possible to directly subscribe to
Stargate to encourage the viability of the network and the lowest
overall fees possible. However, for those situations where a
subscriber site wishes to feed portions of the Stargate data stream to
another site which is unable to subscribe directly itself, we will
attempt whenever possible to reach an amicable agreement under which
this can be done and still maintain the overall viability of the
satellite distribution system which is the primary modality of the
network. Part of the purpose of the experimental subscription period
is to help give us time to judge the sorts of arrangements, subcriber
relationships, etc. that need to be established to help everyone get
the most benefit possible from Stargate at the lowest possible costs.
About equipment. There are two (eventually an optional third) pieces
of equipment involved with Stargate:
1) The data decoder. This is a highly specialized LSI-based device
which extracts, slices, and decodes data from the video signal
at very high video speeds. It uses a proprietary protocol (held
proprietary by the manufacturer to protect their years of R&D
work) and would be exceptionally difficult to duplicate. We
must arrange for the setup, addressing, and delivery of this
decoder for subscribers.
2) The cable-TV demodulator. This is NOT the same thing as the
typical boxes your local cable-TV company provides to you at
home. Normal cable-TV boxes are strictly RF to RF units. The
Stargate data demod must output carefully controlled baseband
video. We have found a relatively inexpensive demodulator that
meets the required tight specifications of video output
filtering, baseband performance, and other parameters that are
required to achieve good performance with the data decoder.
Testing has also indicated that many other demods do NOT meet
the required specifications. Since our demod and decoder have
been tested with each other for proper operation, we cannot
assure reasonable performance with subscriber-provided demod
equipment. While we can't force everyone to use our demod, we
strongly urge its acceptance as the best match for the job at
hand.
3) The buffer box. In the future, we plan to make an optional
"buffer box" available to subscribers who would like to offload
the direct Stargate data stream from their host computers. This
inexpensive 68000-based computer would be quite difficult to
duplicate in functionality for less money than our price, since
it is being mass-produced. However, no subscriber will be
forced to buy or use the buffer box, and if a subscriber wishes
to use their own equipment and software (e.g. some other
dedicated micro, etc.) to buffer the data coming from the
Stargate decoder they will of course be free to do so. We
believe, however, that many sites will not need any such
buffering equipment, since they will achieve good performance
with a direct hookup from the Stargate decoder to their host
computers.
It is not possible at this time for us to announce "production phase"
rates for service after the experimental period. These will depend on
the number of subscribers and the success of the experimental phase.
However, it is our goal that the production fees fall into the same
basic range as the experimental fees.
If anyone has any further questions about any of the above, please feel
free to contact us directly at:
stargate-query@Stargate.COM (if you understand domains)
cbosgd!stargate!stargate-query@seismo.css.gov (for ARPANET hosts that
don't conform to RFC 973/974)
cbosgd!stargate!stargate-query (if you can get to cbosgd
with bangs from UUCP)
Thank you.
The Stargate Teamtaylor@hplabsc.UUCP (02/23/87)
Thank you for posting that (long) message about Stargate and SIS. I withdraw my hasty and foolish request not to have the groups I moderate transmitted over Stargate. -- Dave Taylor --
jerry@oliveb.UUCP (02/24/87)
In article <102@stargate.UUCP> stargate@stargate.COM writes: >We are carrying only moderated newsgroups since that's the only >reasonable manner in which we can ensure quality and manage our >transmission bandwidth. The unmoderated groups for which there is Just how much volume can be generated using only moderated material? The only moderated group having significant volume (and therefor significant transmission costs) is mod.sources. The last statistics posting put it at 11%. I suspect that is peak rather than average because postings to mod.sources tend to be "bursty" because the moderator saves things up until he has time. All the other moderated groups were in the under 2% of total net volume class. If anyone (rick@seismo?) has statistics for a longer period of time I would like to see what the moderated groups actually contribute to traffic, keeping in mind that many of the "mod" groups are really just unmoderated mailing lists and therefor unsuitable for broadcast. Lets be generous and call this the 15% solution. Is it worth the cost of time and equipment setting all this up to get just 15% of the news. I for one am not ready to give up on net.sources, comp.bugs, etc. Despite the high noise level I derive significant benefit from them. The proposed speed of service is not much of an advantage for moderated groups as the delay of the moderator is greater than the current transmission delays. Not a ripe field for "discussions in a timely manner". I don't mean to totally disparage the efforts to develope stargate. I think it is a neat idea. It is just that the restriction to moderated materials would kill it for me. It is too bad that the legal situation has forced them into such nonsense. Also, I don't care if they make a profit or not. I would only care about the price as should anyone thinking clearly. >the system--it is not economically practical to maintain a satellite >system if only a few sites subscribed to the system and they simply >passed material around via dialup to many other sites. At last it comes out of the closet. They are going to take the moderated articles and copyright them! Only sites directly connected benefit from this service, there is no fanout of benefit. >Of course, in the long run the amount of information being sent by >Stargate may be so large that such "non-direct" sites would be unable >to receive all materials, and of course such sites will also be >receiving all materials later than direct subscribers, reducing their >ability to participate in discussions in a timely manner. This line is totally bogus and would have been better left out as a justification. As I understand it the output of the box has been described as 2400 baud. Presumably there is a significant amount of redundancy in the information so that down time does not result in loss of data. So how is this "large" volume of data going to overload a UUCP link? And of course the "timely discussions" is bogus for moderated material. Granted that it would be necessary to restrict redistribution to recover costs. If that isn't enough reason, throwing in mom, apple pie, and the SO next door won't improve things. Mention is made of including additional (non-usenet) material. Having no idea what that is I could not comment on it. There might be enough to justify stargate but most valuable information is not free so it would probably add to costs as well as value. I strongly believe that stargate will survive and become a functional service. I just as strongly believe that it won't be carrying Usenet traffic. After that proves impractical someone will get the bright idea that this could be used for distributing want adds, part numbers, stock market quotations or some other commercial service. (Who would have believed auctions on TV?) The direction will shift to this and the Usenet stuff will fade to background or nothing. I don't want to discourage the stargate developers, I do think something useful will come of it. Jerry Aguirre
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (02/25/87)
In article <562@oliveb.UUCP> jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry F Aguirre) writes: >Lets be generous and call this the 15% solution. Is it worth the cost >of time and equipment setting all this up to get just 15% of the news. Actually, the moderated groups make up about 30% of the total volume, averaged out over time. You've evidently looked at one unrepresentative window, when a few unmoderated groups got very big, and when some of the moderated groups didn't have any traffic. For example, the mod.map posting is about to occur, so it didn't show up in this window. If you compare signal and noise, I think you'll find that considerably more than 30% of the signal is in the moderated groups. I personally can't keep up with many unmoderated groups, because there is just too much traffic there, much of limited value. >I for one am not ready to give up on net.sources, comp.bugs, etc. >Despite the high noise level I derive significant benefit from them. We are working on ways to extract the signal from this type of newsgroup and put it on Stargate. Mark
barto@alvin.UUCP (02/27/87)
I have read all of the postings to this group. I now have 2 problems
both related to money:
1) Domains in Usenet
2) Cost of stargate and the hookup to local cable T.V.
While not directly related to stargate, I have problems with the
cost of registering a domain. At 10000 sites in my 'paths' file if
only 10% register for a domain, that works out to $150,000/yr. How
many people are working fulltime on this? I find it hard to
justify to my management the cost of $150/yr for the ability to
have a nice domain. Even $50/yr to register as a subdomain to
someone else is hard to explain, when management looks on this
as a 'free perk'.
The cost of stargate has not been mentioned in any of the articles
I have read (I may have missed 1 or 2, my feed has only recently
become reliable...). If what Mark H. says is true, and I MUST have
stargate to get all of the news, and that:
We realize that some sites will be unable for technical
reasons to tie-in directly with the WTBS-based system.
We are working on plans to allow those sites to receive
materials from other sites that do subscribe directly to
Stargate, with a fee schedule adjusted to take this
situation into account.
This implies that I must now pay for stargate distribution of news
which was once a 'free local phone call'. If I don't want what
comes over stargate, fine, I don't get it. BUT: What If I want
what is being broadcast on stargate (comp.sources/mod.sources) and
my company is unwilling to pay for it? Is that then so much tough
luck on my part?
I know I am jumping the gun on this. Stargate is still in the
startup phase. However I would like to see some of these questions
answered before I 'am forced' to drop off of Usenet because I can
not afford the costs of Stargate.
--
David Barto sdcsvax!sdcc6--\
barto@sdcsvax.ARPA ihnp4--!bigbang-!megatek!barto
seismo-!s3sun--/mangler@cit-vax.UUCP (03/03/87)
In article <3388@cbosgd.ATT.COM>, mark@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton) writes: > We are working on ways to extract the signal from this type of newsgroup > [the unmoderated ones] and put it on Stargate. Perhaps the best use of Stargate would be to broadcast a "best of Usenet", i.e. selective broadcast across all newsgroups. [cf. the discussion in mod.comp-soc about "information filters"]. Those who wanted the noise as well as the signal (or more likely had a different definition of noise and signal) ought to be able to get the rest of the articles in those newsgroups via land communications, using Stargate as an ordinary (partial) newsfeed. Or will Stargate have its own set of newsgroups? Stargate plays havoc with the notion of distributions. Any article broadcast by Stargate effectively has a distribution of "na" regardless of what the poster specified. Will articles sent via Stargate be given a Distribution: line of (for instance) "stargate"? Don Speck speck@vlsi.caltech.edu {seismo,rutgers,ames}!cit-vax!speck