fischer@utower.UUCP (Axel Fischer) (06/17/89)
In article <786@redsox.bsw.com> campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: >I really don't understand this. Who do you have to pay the $200 to? $200 goes to unido "University of Dortmund" the german backbone. >In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system >administrator and set up a uucp link. If it's a local call, it's free. >What prevents you from doing that in Germany? Even if local calls >aren't free, $200/month seems hard to believe (I suspect that, with >decent modems, I could get a full feed from California for less than >that, at night time rates). Sounds good. But ... in germany unido have the monopol for the connection to USA. No one (no system administrator) is allowed to give you a Newsfeed if your are not registered at unido and if you don't pay the fee. You get also every month a bill for the mailing costs. >I could maybe understand people chipping in to defray the costs of the >transatlantic traffic, but $200 per month per site?? There are presently >235 sites listed in the German uucp map; $200 x 235 = $47,000, and I >can NOT believe that it costs $47,000 per month just to get Usenet >traffic across the ocean!! YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT !!!!! We all don't know either what they are doing with this much money. We have no idea. That's the reason why most of us don't get a lot of NewsGroups. The only groups I get is alt.all not more. I get these only because a *very friendly* SysAdm at the "Technical University of Berlin" (tub) gets them via a direkt link to the USA. If he wouldn't do that I wouldn't get a single group. Recently unido has cut the prices a little bit but not much to help us. The best thing would be someone calls the USA direct with 9600 and f-Protokoll or via x25 and the rest help to pay the phone bill (One Minute (day or night - no difference) to USA from germany is $1.75 !!!) Hope I could have helped you. If you want to know more it's better via mail, because this is a sourcen group. -Axel -- That is not dead | ...!uunet!pyramid! | Beam me up, Scotty - Which can eternal lie | tmpmbx!utower!fischer | there is no intelligent Yet with strange aeons | | life down here ! Even death may die | fischer%utower@tmpmbx | (stardate unknown)
fischer@utower.UUCP (Axel Fischer) (06/20/89)
In article <567@axis.fr> philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) writes: >This is where it becones interesting - apparently our German friend is an >UNOFFICIAL site - which basically means someone is feeding him NEWS >without declaring it - THIS IS ANTI-SOCIAL - the rest of us are paying >more than we need to. That was a bad joke Philipe. Noone -absolutly noone- gets the international News from a Eunet connected site. We are around 100 unofficial sites and the only groups we get are alt.all because ONE OF US polls a site in the USA directly. So before you blame someone with something like that - think first or ask around but don't post what you suppose. Right - we're unofficial - but only in the eyes of Eunet members and we are not betraying someone. -Axel -- ...!uunet!pyramid!tmpmbx!utower!fischer Who? -Me?
campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) (06/20/89)
Recently a student in Germany posted a "Hello, anyone out there, please post if you can hear me, because receiving mail costs me money" message to alt.sources. I flamed him (although mildly, I thought at the time) for causing such a waste of net bandwidth. Apparently he took the flame very personally and was hurt. For that, I apologize. Now, my question (and I'd prefer to get answers only from people in Germany, who know, rather than people in the US, who are guessing). What is going on in Germany that makes getting a news feed so unbelievably expensive? I am really curious about this. One of the followups to the original posting said: > This here is germany not USA. We have no chance to join the UseNet without > having major costs. As you may have followed the discussion in news.admin > you know that we have a very difficult position here. > I'm a student too and I have around $200 costs per month to join UseNet as > an UNOFFICIAL host not know by unido. > For every KB mail I received it's charged for $0.70. I really don't understand this. Who do you have to pay the $200 to? In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system administrator and set up a uucp link. If it's a local call, it's free. What prevents you from doing that in Germany? Even if local calls aren't free, $200/month seems hard to believe (I suspect that, with decent modems, I could get a full feed from California for less than that, at night time rates). I could maybe understand people chipping in to defray the costs of the transatlantic traffic, but $200 per month per site?? There are presently 235 sites listed in the German uucp map; $200 x 235 = $47,000, and I can NOT believe that it costs $47,000 per month just to get Usenet traffic across the ocean!! Please educate me! -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. campbell@bsw.com 120 Fulton Street wjh12!redsox!campbell Boston, MA 02146
gandalf@csli.Stanford.EDU (Juergen Wagner) (06/21/89)
There are a few factors which make Usenet connections cheaper in the U.S.: o Usenet in the U.S. is not a UUCP-only enterprise, i.e. there are large universities and companies with local Internets and a significant number of Usenet hosts. o There are much more Usenet host in the U.S. than in Germany. o In Germany, phone charges are typically higher. There is no flat rate, so you have to pay for every local call. o Transatlantic phone charges are high, therefore the cost of passing on the huge volume of newsgroups to Europe is expensive (even though some newsgroups are not available in Europe). o Unido, the German backbone site at the University of Dortmund is the ONLY backbone site in Germany. It receives news via mcvax in Amsterdam. Please note that I am not defending the current news situation in Germany! This is the state of affairs. I am not up-to-date on the charges for phone lines, X.25 lines, etc. but it is clear that with the monopoly the German Bundespost has on communication services via phone lines or radio waves, maintaining a private Usenet site is much more costly than in the U.S. If I had a computer at home (= here in Stanford), I guess I could get a newsfeed from some Stanford machine without too much trouble. Having subscribed to a flat rate (which is reasonable if you own a dialin terminal, anyway), the cost could be very close to zero! What is being developed is a high-speed research Internet based on ISO-OSI, which may make receiving news and e-mail from overseas much cheaper because of gateways to NSFnet. It may however take a while until this network is fully established and able to support hosts other than those at universities, research institutions and large companies... -- Juergen Wagner gandalf@csli.stanford.edu wagner@arisia.xerox.com
det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) (06/21/89)
In article <786@redsox.bsw.com>, campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: > Now, my question (and I'd prefer to get answers only from people in Germany, > who know, rather than people in the US, who are guessing). What is going on > in Germany that makes getting a news feed so unbelievably expensive? [..] Hopefully, one who used to live in europa will help, rather than one who is currently living in europa.... > > [..] > > For every KB mail I received it's charged for $0.70. > > I really don't understand this. Who do you have to pay the $200 to? Quite possibly the phone company (usually state run and called PTT (post, telephone, telegraph)). > In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system > administrator and set up a uucp link. If it's a local call, it's free. > What prevents you from doing that in Germany? Even if local calls > aren't free, $200/month seems hard to believe (I suspect that, with > decent modems, I could get a full feed from California for less than > that, at night time rates). When i lived in Nederland (holland) local calls were charged at 10c (dutch cents) per call. I could easily imagine a metered call. In fact, it might have been 10c/call + X cents per minute.... Can't quite remember. In any event, its not too hard to rack up lots of bucks at 70c/minute. This article that i am posting is approximately 2K just by itself. So, assuming $200/ month is the goal (not desired, of course (:-() and 30 days per month and (just) 1K per article: $200.00 $6.67 $6.67 1 article 9.53 articles ------- = ----- and, ----- x --------- = ------------- 30 days 1 day 1 day $0.70 day How many articles do YOU get a day? More than 10 articles? That would only be 5 of these (relatively) small articles, like the one i'm posting right now. Suprising how fast a seemingly little charge can add up, huh? I have also heard that it is relatively difficult to get 2400 baud modems in germany, and quite difficult to get >2400 baud modems. We (in the usa) are pretty lucky... You should try the telephone service in Egypt (from what i've heard)... Hope you-all have enjoyed these simplistic calculations... derek -- Derek Terveer det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG || ..!uunet!rosevax!elric!hawkmoon!det w(612)681-6986 h(612)688-0667 "A proper king is crowned" -- Thomas B. Costain
br@laura.UUCP (Bodo Rueskamp) (06/21/89)
In article <786@redsox.bsw.com> campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: >I really don't understand this. Who do you have to pay the $200 to? >In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system >administrator and set up a uucp link. If it's a local call, it's free. The German backbone "unido" charges $40..$200 per month. Each German host has this to pay, also if the host isn't directly connected to unido. unido has a news link to the european backbone in Amsterdam and a mail link to uunet. Local phone calls cost $0.01 per minute, a short distance call (20..50 km) cost $0.06 per minute, and a long distance call (over 50 km) cost $0.18 per minute (from 6pm to 8am). -- Bodo Rueskamp, <br@laura.uucp>
wnp@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Wolf Paul) (06/21/89)
In article <9462@csli.Stanford.EDU> gandalf@csli.stanford.edu (Juergen Wagner) writes: >There are a few factors which make Usenet connections cheaper in the U.S.: > ... >o Unido, the German backbone site at the University of Dortmund is the ONLY > backbone site in Germany. It receives news via mcvax in Amsterdam. > ... >What is being developed is a high-speed research Internet based on ISO-OSI, >which may make receiving news and e-mail from overseas much cheaper because >of gateways to NSFnet. It may however take a while until this network is >fully established and able to support hosts other than those at universities, >research institutions and large companies... Particularly since that support is not really as much a technical issue as it is a political one. Even now it it possible for a site or group of sites to bypass mcvax and unido (or the other national backbone sites in the case of other countries in Europe) by using a Trailblazer modem and a friendly host in the US; however, since the EUNET backbones consider that a violation of THEIR monopoly (note that in Europe, it is not only the phone companies that are monopolistic), and will block all traffic to and from such sites, setting up such a direct link to the US without simultaneously paying the normal EUNET charges effectively cuts you off from other European sites. This was discussed at length in news.admin a few months ago. Thus, while I think it would be technically quite feasible for a UNIX site on this research internet which Juergen mentions, to feed uucp-only sites in its city or neighboring area, this would result in that site and its leaf nodes being blacklisted by EUNET. No serious site is going to take that risk for the sake of some "hobbyist net junkies". -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: {texbell, killer, dalsqnt}!dcs!wnp DOMAIN: wnp@killer.dallas.tx.us or wnp%dcs@texbell.swbt.com
philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) (06/21/89)
In article <786@redsox.bsw.com>, campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: > Now, my question (and I'd prefer to get answers only from people in Germany, > who know, rather than people in the US, who are guessing). What is going on > in Germany that makes getting a news feed so unbelievably expensive? I am > really curious about this. One of the followups to the original posting > said: > > > This here is germany not USA. We have no chance to join the UseNet without > > having major costs. As you may have followed the discussion in news.admin > > you know that we have a very difficult position here. > > I'm a student too and I have around $200 costs per month to join UseNet as > > an UNOFFICIAL host not know by unido. > > For every KB mail I received it's charged for $0.70. > > I really don't understand this. Who do you have to pay the $200 to? > In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system > administrator and set up a uucp link. If it's a local call, it's free. > What prevents you from doing that in Germany? Even if local calls > aren't free, $200/month seems hard to believe (I suspect that, with > decent modems, I could get a full feed from California for less than > that, at night time rates). > > I could maybe understand people chipping in to defray the costs of the > transatlantic traffic, but $200 per month per site?? There are presently > 235 sites listed in the German uucp map; $200 x 235 = $47,000, and I > can NOT believe that it costs $47,000 per month just to get Usenet > traffic across the ocean!! Ok, so you asked for responses only from Germany, but since they are part of EUnet, I can tell you how EUnet is SUPPOSED to operate. EUnet is NOT USENET. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Remember that phrase, it is important. Having seen the problems that USENET has, europe wanted to avoid the same problems. So, we have a much more formal structure here. The important points to remember are: 1) No one pays out bills for us - no kind DEC or IBM passing on mail or NEWS free of charge. 2) Communications costs are MUCH higher than in the USA. When you cross a state border in the US, your 'phone charges dont suddely multiply by at leat ten times ! 3) NEWS and mail are treated seperately. To even CONNECT to the network, you are supposed to be a member of the EUUG. This will cost something different in each country. There is normally an annual connection fee to cover the administrative costs of adding a new site to the backbone. Mail is charged on a per Kb basis - until recently we (europeans) were paying the cost of transporting mail sent from the US to europe, as well as paying for transport costs for mail we sent - now that things are better organised (thanks to UUNET), this is changing. NEWS is charged seperately - normally on a fixed cost per year - you pay your own transport between your backbone and your site. Looking at the German uucp map and saying that there are x sites doesn't imply that all x receive news - in fact the numbers are quite small - in france we are talking about something like 10 - 15 sites. The cost of shipping NEWS (the USENET part) accross the Atlantic is divided between these OFFICIAL sites. This is where it becones interesting - apparently our German friend is an UNOFFICIAL site - which basically means someone is feeding him NEWS without declaring it - THIS IS ANTI-SOCIAL - the rest of us are paying more than we need to. One of the perenial complaints is that NEWS is too expensive here - no wonder it is expensive if it is only a small percentage of those actually using it who pay ! EUnet runs a very profesional service, it is reliable and (just about) fully domain based - we don't have problems routing our mail, mail just works ! USENET is just ONE of the networks connected to EUnet, it does not exist in europe, please don't try applying the same rules. If anyone connected to EUnet wants a news feed it is FREE, but if they want the HUGE VOLUME of USENET NEWS then they have to participate in the costs of getting it here, and distributing it around europe. Philip
stefan@yendor.phx.mcd.mot.com (Stefan Loesch) (06/22/89)
In article <786@redsox.bsw.com> campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: > >Now, my question (and I'd prefer to get answers only from people in Germany, >who know, rather than people in the US, who are guessing). What is going on Now, do I qualify ? I transfered here to Arizona last August. Before that I was the postmaster (besides other things) of one of the few comercial sites in Germany that had news (I think at that time it were around 10 or so). The problem in Germany is manyfolded. Local calls in Germany are not free. They cost about 12 cents per 10 minutes. If you're talking long distance (within Germany!) you're also talking big bucks! Local calls are VERY limited, and a lot of people don't live within the "local" area of a major city with an university. If you restrict yourself to let's say one MB per week (you know that this is not much), and could get it locally then let's see: 1200 baud ==> about 80 chars/sec (noise and protocoll overhead) 1MB (ca. 1000000 chars)/80 ==> 12500 seconds (or about 4 hours) ==> about 2.50$. So far so good. NOW the big sledge hammer: There is one central backbone in Germany: unido or University of Dortmund They claim (and I believe them), that the amounts they charge are just about covering their costs for maintaining the net services. They charge (for universities it's less): $ 20.00 for German (or is it European ?) mailservice plus charges per kilobyte $ 40.00 for international mailservice plus charges per kilobyte $ 200.00 for usenet services That's also how the 235 sites are explained: a lot of them only have sub- scribed to mailservices. A student could get news from his university, but a lot of universities simply don't have news, and if they do, time on computers is limited and restricted. You could argue, that other sites could get the news and further redistribute them, thus minimizing the cost. That's what happend in some cases, but immediately there was a discussion under way, wether that should be allowed by unido. I've to clarify that one: unido provides the services as part of your membership in the GUUG (German Unix User Group) (though you still have to pay the above fees). Since a lot of people have access to BBS's which are not a member in the EUUG, they would get something (news) without having to pay the membership fees (50.- $ ?) of EUUG. I hope that clarifies the Situation in Germany a bit. Sorry for the long followup in this group (but we want our German friends to listen, don't we (-: ). I'm sure I've omitted half of the facts and have the other half wrong, but if anybody from Germany listens in (Hallo Andreas und andere postmaster!) they can correct me. Stefan uunet!asuvax!mcdphx!yendor!stefan
jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) (06/22/89)
In article <1433@laura.UUCP> br@laura.UUCP (Bodo Rueskamp) writes: >The German backbone "unido" charges $40..$200 per month. Each German host has >this to pay, also if the host isn't directly connected to unido. unido has >a news link to the european backbone in Amsterdam and a mail link to uunet. My phone bill runs $60 to $100 per month. I don't see what is so awful expecting someone to spend $40 to $200 a month for USENET. My last months total charges for all of the lines, installation, long distance, etc. was $298. The phones I had disconnected cost another $130. The grand total is $428. So I damned well understand having to pay out the ass for telephone charges. However, if you wanna play with the big boys and get lotsa neat junk in the mail and have lotsa real nice toys, YOU GOTTA PAY THE PIPER. >Local phone calls cost $0.01 per minute, a short distance call (20..50 km) >cost $0.06 per minute, and a long distance call (over 50 km) cost $0.18 per >minute (from 6pm to 8am). Big deal, so what. AT&T hasn't started handing out free toll calls just yet. But when they do, I'll be the first person standing in line to get me one. Until then, QUIT POSTING STUFF THAT SHOULD BE MAILED. If it costs too much money, arrange for a snail-mail newsfeed. Its not like soc.sinners is super critical information you must have last week or you are going to die. You could probably pick up a full newsfeed from a North American site for well under $50 a month. -- John F. Haugh II +-Button of the Week Club:------------- VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | "AIX is a three letter word, InterNet: jfh@rpp386.Cactus.Org | and it's BLUE." UucpNet : <backbone>!bigtex!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
dfk@cwi.nl (Daniel Karrenberg) (06/22/89)
A few explanations about the situation in Europe are in order I suppose. This is going to be longer than I'd like! As to my background and "authority": I am currently member of the board of EUUG responsible for EUnet. EUUG is the European Unix User Group (note Unix is not a noun :-) and EUnet is the European part of the worldwide UUCP and netnews network. EUnet has much closer ties with EUUG than USENET or UUCP has with USENIX. As for knowing Germany: I'm German and have been one of the people setting up EUnet in Germany at unido. This was against the declared policy of the department I was working for at the time. So much for my experience with the "usual" USENET way of operation :-). European telecommunications charges are *much* higher than those in the US. Traditionally telecommunications have been provided by state run monopolies at huge profits subsidizing other postal services or even the national budgets. Others have already made this point. These things are changing but *very* slowly. (There is something to be said in fvour of slow change here in order to maintain a reasonable level of service. My impression is that the US have been bitten in some areas by deregulation.) International communications costs are even higher. I pay about .60 US$ a minute to call my girlfriend in Germany from Holland. She lives less than 200 US miles away from me. In central Europe going any significant distance means crossing an international border. Importing netnews from the US is also quite expensive. A minute off peak is about 1.50 US$. X.25 nets are a little less expensive if you call from Europe. X.25 also is checper for intra European international links. However the subscription and equipment costs are higher. So when EUnet started the objective was to share as many international links as possible and to get the news from the US only once. This led to a much more hierarchical organisation than in USENET with strict rules for sharing the costs. This is absolutely needed for fair sharing of the total cost. Beleive me, I would really prefer the "anarchic" way of doing things if it only worked to an acceptable degree of service. As someone else has put it: You are very lucky with your telecomms structure in the US and some large companies "donating" resources. Here we ar bitten by nationalism in Europe. The most internationally minded companies in Europa are the US ones! Back to EUnet: Sites receiving news have to pay a share of the cost to bring them into a given country and transmitting locally generated articles outside the country. If you want an EUnet newsfeed you have to pay up period. fairness to those paying alone should be enough reason! The shares are actually quite fair and claims about high costs for individuals are not always true. In Germany for instance there is a possibility for individual users to form a group and get one subscription for all of them. The only condition is that they are really individuals and not large organisations who should pay a full share and that the group does redistribution internally. I know that the German backbone site is actively helping individuals to organise themselves like this. If anyone can arrange for a newsfeed themselves, fine. Some have mentioned that this is made impossible by EUnet. This is nonsense, how could EUnet stop anyone from doing this? Some mentioned that EUnet would blacklist such sites. This is not true. What we do is make sure that those sites are not using the shared EUnet infrastructure without paying a fair share. Some of them have actually demanded that we pass mail for them at no charge. How could EUnet agree to such a thing while those users paying a share for their service would complain? There have been a few attempts to set up an alternative newsfeed for general use to parts of Europe. So far all of them failed because of the cost. Yes some of them ran for a few months until either the management of the companies being "used" discovered the phone bill, the company went bankrupt (two cases) or it was discovered that communications facilities were actually stolen (I know at least one widely publicised case). As to the numbers in one of the articles there are 35 and not 235 sites getting news in Germany. Because of the high cost it is quite common that EUnet sites use only mail. Of course the more subscriptions the less the shares cost but that's a hen and egg problem! Actually the maximum charge in Germany is US$150/month for all news, and 60$ for 10%. I think this is reasonable for larger organisations because it also includes a help desk and other additional services. If 10 individuals organise themselves and get a group subscription 15$/month should be beareable, shouldn't it? Just to avoid flames: I personally don't like volume charging on news but that's what the German backbone and it's users agreed to do. And charging of the end sites is a national matter. Maybe I should mention as an aside that trans-border moneyflow involves costly conversion over here and we strive to minimise (note British spelling :-) it. Which brings me back to my original point: Conditions are different over here! Please take this into account before making quick judgements and flaming away. As to European users having problems getting the news via EUnet I am always available as EUUG board member to help them find a solution. -- Daniel Karrenberg Future Net: <dfk@cwi.nl> CWI, Amsterdam Oldie Net: mcvax!dfk The Netherlands Because It's There Net: DFK@MCVAX
pim@ctisbv.UUCP (Pim Zandbergen) (06/22/89)
In article <16720@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: |In article <1433@laura.UUCP> br@laura.UUCP (Bodo Rueskamp) writes: |>The German backbone "unido" charges $40..$200 per month. Each German host has |>this to pay, also if the host isn't directly connected to unido. unido has |>a news link to the european backbone in Amsterdam and a mail link to uunet. | |My phone bill runs $60 to $100 per month. I don't see what is so awful |expecting someone to spend $40 to $200 a month for USENET. I think you misunderstood Bodo. The $40..$200 is just a subscription fee. You have to pay the phone bill as well! -- --------------------+----------------------+----------------------------------- Pim Zandbergen | phone: +31 70 542302 | CTI Software BV pim@ctisbv.UUCP | fax : +31 70 512837 | Laan Copes van Cattenburch 70 ...!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!ctisbv!pim | 2585 GD The Hague, The Netherlands
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (06/22/89)
In article <16720@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>, jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) writes: > My phone bill runs $60 to $100 per month. Your phone bill covers a whole lot more than regular Usenet access. You're a long-distance-link-junkie. Admit it. Altruism or ego-boosting, it's not an expense that most Usenet sites require. There are lots and lots of people who just get a local feed and feed local sites... and probably end up spending $30 a month for all the groups they care to get. > However, if you wanna play with the big boys and get lotsa neat junk > in the mail and have lotsa real nice toys, YOU GOTTA PAY THE PIPER. Not everyone on the net is a 'big boy'. It's just that in Europe, the little boys pay big-boy rates. Perhaps the hobbyists in Germany need to form an alliance independant of the backbone. From what I understand, they're doing that in Italy. -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.
jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) (06/22/89)
In article <4679@ficc.uu.net>, peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: > > Not everyone on the net is a 'big boy'. It's just that in Europe, the little > boys pay big-boy rates. > > Perhaps the hobbyists in Germany need to form an alliance independant of > the backbone. From what I understand, they're doing that in Italy. Without quarreling with Peter's suggestion, I would offer an alternative suggestion: that the hobbyists in *every* country where there's a State phone monopoly work to get that monopoly eliminated. Where the government (such as in these overly-united States) grants a private company such a monopoly, the need is to repeal that franchise. With competition, rates will go down. In cities where more than one electricity company is allowed to operate, rates for that utility are lower ... and service is *much* friendlier. Jeff Daiell -- Daddy: Be nice to your sisters. Fusser McGee, wearing headband: I'm an Indian! Daddy: You can still be nice to your sisters. Fusser McGee: I'm a *mean* Indian!
joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) (06/22/89)
In article <987@hawkmoon.MN.ORG> det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes: >In article <786@redsox.bsw.com>, campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: >> In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system >> administrator and set up a uucp link. If it's a local call, it's free. >> What prevents you from doing that in Germany? Even if local calls >> aren't free, $200/month seems hard to believe (I suspect that, with >> decent modems, I could get a full feed from California for less than >> that, at night time rates). > >When i lived in Nederland (holland) local calls were charged at 10c (dutch >I have also heard that it is relatively difficult to get 2400 baud modems in >germany, and quite difficult to get >2400 baud modems. I did some other math. Our full news feed is about 5 Meg a day. I think this is expanded. Assuming 50% less phone traffic (compressed, not quite a full feed, or what-not), here's what I get: With a 2400-baud line, we get about 200 chars/sec throughput on our UUCP traffic here. This means that the 2.5 Meg of data is going to take 3.5 hours to send. Now, let's see. 3.5 hours * 30 days is 105 hours of phone conversation. Call it 100. 6000 minutes. For $200. 3 and 1/3rd cents a minute. If phone rates in Germany are roughly comparable to those here in Minnesota, then you need 10 sites being served by on long-distance call. Do they charge for local calls in Germany? I guess I understand where the $200 goes. Now, if local calls are free in Germany, then good UUCP map management should help to cut the cost. 200 sites receiving a cross-atlantic feed should be... Let's see. Call it 70 cents a minute late-night. Is this about right? It's probably higher, but that's $21 a month. -J -- Life is a cabaret (old chum). UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe (Picts 1-13 are DHDSC - Joe Larson/MIS 1060 ATT : (612) 375-3537 now ready.) 700 on the Mall, Mpls, Mn. 55402
jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) (06/23/89)
In article <567@axis.fr> philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) writes: >The cost of shipping NEWS (the USENET part) accross the Atlantic is divided >between these OFFICIAL sites. > >This is where it becones interesting - apparently our German friend is an >UNOFFICIAL site - which basically means someone is feeding him NEWS >without declaring it - THIS IS ANTI-SOCIAL - the rest of us are paying >more than we need to. The person in question is not freeloading. He is placing phone calls across the Atlantic himself. The fact that people can do this and save money suggests that the EUNET organization isn't set up in the most efficient possible way -- someone is finding it cheaper to transport a (partial) newsfeed across the Atlantic than to pay 1/Nth the cost of having EUNET do it. The rest of you are NOT paying more than you need to, since this person is unwilling to pay your rates. >One of the perenial complaints is that NEWS is too expensive here - no wonder >it is expensive if it is only a small percentage of those actually using >it who pay ! This guy you are yelling about is paying in full. It's just that he is not paying YOU. -- -- Joe Buck jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck
jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) (06/23/89)
In article <765@ctisbv.UUCP> pim@ctisbv.UUCP (Pim Zandbergen) writes: >In article <16720@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: >|My phone bill runs $60 to $100 per month. I don't see what is so awful >|expecting someone to spend $40 to $200 a month for USENET. > >I think you misunderstood Bodo. The $40..$200 is just a subscription fee. >You have to pay the phone bill as well! I think you missed the point. The point is if you want to play the game you have to pay the prices. Living in a country with repressive telecommunications monopolies does not grant you the right to spend the money of foreign nationals just because they don't have a repressive telephone company. USENET is not a god given right, contrary to the opinions of a number of Germans who don't want to pay for it, but seem to have no trouble expecting us to. -- John F. Haugh II +-Button of the Week Club:------------- VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | "AIX is a three letter word, InterNet: jfh@rpp386.Cactus.Org | and it's BLUE." UucpNet : <backbone>!bigtex!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) (06/23/89)
In article <4679@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <16720@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>, jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) writes: >> My phone bill runs $60 to $100 per month. > >Your phone bill covers a whole lot more than regular Usenet access. You're >a long-distance-link-junkie. Admit it. That doesn't cover long distance charges for news links, that's long distance for MAIL links. You forget, the first rule of this system is [ was, I don't have any rules now ... ] you call me, I don't have the $4,000+ I figure it would take to service 450 hours off hook a month. >Altruism or ego-boosting, it's not an expense that most Usenet sites require. >There are lots and lots of people who just get a local feed and feed local >sites... and probably end up spending $30 a month for all the groups they >care to get. Well, gee. Butchaknow, if SOMEONE didn't take the effort to truck the news into wherever, there wouldn't be the individual groups for someone to pay $30 a month. And you can't get the lines required to service 450+ hours / month of dialtone for only $30 a month. >Not everyone on the net is a 'big boy'. It's just that in Europe, the little >boys pay big-boy rates. No, it's just in Germany they expect everyone to truck news articles around when the item should have been mailed. Our dear friend Axel Fischer(sp) requested that I _post_ patches to login which he had missed because they were [ and obviously did ] going to charge him $35 for the 35K patch I sent him. Apparently this type of behavior is quite common in Germany - several other Germans have made identical requests - post, don't mail. >Perhaps the hobbyists in Germany need to form an alliance independant of >the backbone. From what I understand, they're doing that in Italy. Yes - I've heard about what is going on in Italy and agree 100 percent. I think what unido is doing should be stopped as well. However, posting thigs which should be mailed because Axel doesn't want to pay his fair share appears to be exactly the problem which is causing EUnet to have to take such fascist measures - namely EUnet spends their money to truck news into Europe and the recipients don't want to reimburse them. -- John F. Haugh II +-Button of the Week Club:------------- VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | "AIX is a three letter word, InterNet: jfh@rpp386.Cactus.Org | and it's BLUE." UucpNet : <backbone>!bigtex!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
wnp@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Wolf Paul) (06/23/89)
In article <4680@ficc.uu.net> jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) writes: >Without quarreling with Peter's suggestion, I would offer an alternative >suggestion: that the hobbyists in *every* country where there's >a State phone monopoly work to get that monopoly eliminated. >Where the government (such as in these overly-united States) >grants a private company such a monopoly, the need is to >repeal that franchise. The telecommunications monopolies in Europe are not private companies, but state-owned and state-run. And it would probably be hard to find a majority for abolishing these monopolies -- there's too many things tied up with them that "have always been done this way", and modem users are very much in the minority. And where in these United States does the gov't grant private companies a telecomm monopoly? That wasn't even the case before divestiture, MCI, GTE and others have been around since before then. -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: {texbell, killer, dalsqnt}!dcs!wnp DOMAIN: wnp@killer.dallas.tx.us or wnp%dcs@texbell.swbt.com
jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) (06/23/89)
In article <987@hawkmoon.MN.ORG> det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes: > So, assuming $200/ >month is the goal (not desired, of course (:-() and 30 days per month and (just) >1K per article: > > $200.00 $6.67 $6.67 1 article 9.53 articles > ------- = ----- and, ----- x --------- = ------------- > 30 days 1 day 1 day $0.70 day Try a TB then. Assuming 1.5K per second [ 15Kbaud ], you get 90 articles per minute. If you take that $6.67 per day allowance and turn it into minutes you get 9.5 minutes per day or 850 articles, which is about half a full feed. These numbers scale fairly easily. A full feed would be about $400/month, and a transatlantic feed at $1.50/minute would be near $900. I understand a group of Italians is doing exactly this. -- John F. Haugh II +-Button of the Week Club:------------- VoiceNet: (512) 832-8832 Data: -8835 | "AIX is a three letter word, InterNet: jfh@rpp386.Cactus.Org | and it's BLUE." UucpNet : <backbone>!bigtex!rpp386!jfh +--------------------------------------
emma@sbsvax.UUCP (Martin Emmerich) (06/23/89)
In article <6622@dayton.UUCP>, joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) writes: > In article <987@hawkmoon.MN.ORG> det@hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes: > >I have also heard that it is relatively difficult to get 2400 baud modems in > >germany, and quite difficult to get >2400 baud modems. It is NOT difficult, but it is not allowed by the Deutsche Bundespost. In earlier times, they destroyed the "illegal" modems. But now they even discover Trailblazers. > > I did some other math. Our full news feed is about 5 Meg a day. I think > this is expanded. Assuming 50% less phone traffic (compressed, not quite a > full feed, or what-not), here's what I get: For a connection from Germany to USA we pay about 3.67 DM / min. Even if I use a trailblazer I get only 1800 bytes / sec. ( 2.5MB / 1800 B/sec ) / 60 sec/min * 3.67 DM/min =~ 89 DM 1 $ =~ 2 DM And this you pay EVERY day ( 89 DM/day * 30 days/month = 2670 DM/month ) !!! > Do they charge for local calls in Germany? Of course they do. At mo-fr 8-18h we have higher prices ( i.e. shorter intervals ). In the Nahbereich ( short distance area, about 20 km radius ) we have intervals of 8 or 12 min. From 20-50 km is 45/67.5 sec, from 50-100 km 20/38.6 and above 100 km 12/38.6sec. But the first interval may be shortend by "technical reasons" down to one 16th. For each interval we pay 0.23 DM. So we pay about 0.029/0.019, 0.31/0.20, 0.69/0.36 and 1.15/0.36 DM/min for national calls. To our neighbours, UK, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy we pay 1.15/0.8625 DM/min. For the rest of Europe and mediterranean Africa we pay 1.30 DM/min. The rest of the world we get for only 3.67 DM/min. In the near future, the intervals for short distance will be shortend an the long distance call intervals will be extended. > > I guess I understand where the $200 goes. No. The $200 are only for the subscription, you still have to pay the phone bill ! Perhaps you now understand why we love the Deutsche Bundespost that much. /\/> / ,--- / | Snail: Hangweg 9 / / _ __-/- o _ /-- __ __ _ __ o _ /_ | D-6601 Buebingen / /_/_(_/(_/(_(_/ ( /___//(_//(_(/_/(_(_(_/ ( | Voice: +(49)6805/8299 ---------------------------------------------------+------------------------- X.400: emma@sbsvax.informatik.uni-saarland.dbp.de | Z-Net: aniel@eiko.zer
erict@flatline.UUCP (J. Eric Townsend) (06/23/89)
Look, it's *crossposted* to news.admin and alt.sources. How about making it news.admin and alt.config, ok? -- panic: curb fault -- skater bailed J. Eric Townsend -- uunet!sugar!flatline!erict || cosc5zz@george.uh.edu 511 Parker #2, Houston, Tx 77007 EastEnders Mailing list: eastender@flatline.UUCP
uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) (06/24/89)
From article <11134@yendor.phx.mcd.mot.com>, by stefan@yendor.phx.mcd.mot.com (Stefan Loesch): > In article <786@redsox.bsw.com> campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes: >> >>Now, my question (and I'd prefer to get answers only from people in Germany, >>who know, rather than people in the US, who are guessing). What is going on So, let's summarize a bit. 1) Yes, it's hard to get newsfeed in Europe, and awfully expensive. So that flame about German student was unnecessary. 2) It looks like some SysOps can arrange feeding those in Europe who will ask - and it can help at least to cut down the expenses twice. Not bad. 3) It's nice that there are not only "flammable" guys around, but a lot of ready-to-help ones (at least one message proposed real help - thanks!). Well, that's it. Actually I wrote this note just to test MY access to the network - so you may try to flame ME (if you didn't spend all the piper on that poor kid). I will post every flame I receive (with my comments - as neat as the input). But for good people - I don't need an answer. Yes, I'm a novice (but not in all the fields though). Sorry, if I'll not get something *dirty* - it's my last non-source posting here.Otherwise - ... Uri (Don't bother yourself with UUCP yet...)
zu@ethz.UUCP (Urs Zurbuchen) (06/24/89)
In article <6622@dayton.UUCP> joe@dayton.UUCP (Joseph P. Larson) writes: >I did some other math. Our full news feed is about 5 Meg a day. I think >this is expanded. Assuming 50% less phone traffic (compressed, not quite a >full feed, or what-not), here's what I get: I also did some math. Using the above numbers for traffic but the correct charges for phone calls. Assuming the same numbers as in the original article we would transfer 2.5 MB of compressed news a day at 2400 baud. This gives about 6000 minutes connect time. One minute connect time to the USA at lowest possible rate is $1. (at least from Switzerland). Multiply this by 6000 and get $7500.- per month. Way above the $200.- mentioned in the article which started this all. As far as I know the transatlantic link doesn't run at 2400 bps only. But even at 9600 bps (assuming you have a clear line a get that much data through), you'd pay about $1900.- a month. You need at least 9 other sites sharing the cost with you to get as low as $200.- And then local phone charges are not yet included. And they are much higher than in the USA. I didn't intend to defend EUUG (or any european backbone). But I think the problem is with our PTT monopolies and not with EUUG (but I'm not THAT sure about it). ...urs UUCP (dumb): {backbone}!mcvax!cernvax!ethz!zu (smart): zu@norad.UUCP or netto@norad.UUCP or zu@ethz.UUCP Fido: 2:302/801.36
pcg@aber-cs.UUCP (Piercarlo Grandi) (06/24/89)
In article <567@axis.fr> philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) writes:
This is where it becones interesting - apparently our German friend is an
UNOFFICIAL site - which basically means someone is feeding him NEWS
without declaring it - THIS IS ANTI-SOCIAL - the rest of us are paying
more than we need to.
One of the perenial complaints is that NEWS is too expensive here - no wonder
it is expensive if it is only a small percentage of those actually using
it who pay !
This is again the old fallacy. If the cost of getting news from the US is
divided amongst all subscribers, then nobody has the incentive to feed other
sites, as the reduction in charges has to be shared among all the existing
sites. If the sites closest to the backbone pay for the news and ask for a
reimbursment from other sites they feed, those that are keener on being feeds
will split their costs with many, and so on, and this will encourage getting
new subscribers. As the system stands now it is *forbidden* for a site to
split its costs with those it feeds, it must share the benefit even with sites
that don't want to feed anybody.
In the end, this means that the only site that has an incentive in taking the
trouble to feed is the national backbone, and other sites have little reason
beyond goodwill to take the trouble to feed somebody because they are forced
to share the benefit with everybody else.
--
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.ukdww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (06/24/89)
To those who wonder why news is so expensive in many European countries, I suggest you print off the postscript news distribution maps that Brian Ried has posted in news.lists. You will see that many countries have very few news sites (and many sites have mail but not news). It costs $$$$ to bring news across the Atlantic, but that cost is spread over many sites. Unfortunately it also costs $$$ to transport news across national boundaries, and where there are only a few sites to share this cost, plus the costs of the national backbone site, news is expensive. Because it is expensive, few sites participate, and so it stays expensive. The EUUG subsidises the Eunet to some extent, but most costs have to be paid by the participating sites. There is some hope of government subsidy in the future (the CEC may pay for a fast European network), which would put us in a similar position to much of the US (though with civil rather than military funding), but at present the user must pay. Some posters have suggested that European sites should 'get a Trailblazer and import news directly'. Well, TB's would help, so lots of us are getting them (UKUUG has negociated a discount on them, as have some other national UUG's), but are not *that* magic. A news feed from the US of all technical groups - leaving out all talk and most rec as at present in Europe - would cost about $50,000 per year in transmission costs over IPSS (X.25), but only about $10,000 via Trailblazer. Would you pay $10K for news? Some would, but not many. So we have to club together to cover transmission costs to our national backbones. We also have to pay for the associated computer and staff costs -- most Eunet backbone sites are universities, and being both non-profitmaking and also less well endowed than many US universities they cannot absorb the cost of providing a service to lots of other establishments that are not directly associated, (why should the University of Kent (ukc) subsidise STC or University Dortmund (unido) subsidise netmbx? Explain your reasons using not more than 5000 words. Your paper will be marked by the University's auditors). Some sites declare 'UDI' - good luck to them. If they make all their own arrangements to deliver and pick up their mail, they incur no costs on the rest of us. But in practice this is very difficult, and so such sites find they do need to use the Eunet, and thus cannot avoid a duty to share its costs. I should point out that most sites in Europe work in the same way as in the USA - we pass on news/mail to other sites without charge, on a 'you call us' basis, accepting the costs we incurr in managing a news/mail feed to others as a fair exchange for the same boon others give us. But this cannot apply to the backbone sites that move news across international boundaries: such costs do not balance out. In the UK we are lucky - with over 400 sites on the UK net, news costs per site are reasonable. Volume is so high that ukc now has a leased line to mcvax (which as you may know has a fast leased line to uunet). The actual mail costs per kByte have reduced considerably as a result. But we still have some problems here with mail costs. Ukc makes no charge for handling mail within the UK (except for a quarterly subscription to commercial sites), but they do pass on their communications costs of 2 pence (about 3 cents) per kbyte for international mail. Some sites decide they cannot pay this, so ukc reject international mail to/from them. They may appear in UK maps, and receive UK mail OK, but foreign mail is bounced: this can be very confusing to the foreign senders! If anyone has any suggestions on how else to deal with this, other than that those who do pay should subsidise those who won't, I'm sure we'd like to hear them. Even in the UK the subscription cost of a news feed ($50 per month), very reasonable for any commercial organisation, is too much for someone trying to get their own news feed to their own home computer, and I understand it is higher in Germany. Such people could sign up with a public access site, and read news there instead of trying to get it all on their own machine. In Germany, netmbx (Berlin) offers very reasonable rates for news reading (plus a little more if you post). I do not know which news groups netmbx gets. Mail me if you want their PSS number. I regret that I do not know a UK public access site, though I believe they exist. -- Regar
lambert@cwi.nl (Lambert Meertens) (06/25/89)
In article <16725@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: ) I think what unido is doing should be stopped as well. What exactly "what unido is doing" should be stopped? Distributing news? Letting subscribing sites pay a share of the costs? Eating sauerkraut? -- --Lambert Meertens, CWI, Amsterdam; lambert@cwi.nl
fischer@netmbx.UUCP (Axel Fischer) (06/25/89)
In article <16725@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes: >Our dear friend Axel Fischer(sp) requested that I _post_ patches to >login which he had missed because they were [ and obviously did ] >going to charge him $35 for the 35K patch I sent him. Apparently >this type of behavior is quite common in Germany - several other >Germans have made identical requests - post, don't mail. Dear John, soory I have to correct you in this point. As you might recall i have ask you to please "don't mail because I have to pay it" but I never have asked to post the whole stuff. Instead I have asked you if I can send you a disk so you can copy it for me on disk and send it via airmail to me. I know that in earlier times several germans has behaved like this (I don't want to exclude me) but we've learned from earlier mistakes. (At least the guys I know). You are right - if one or two request something it's wrong to post it so others have to pay for it too. If I would have enough money I would establish a direct connection to the USA via highspeed Modems believe me, so I fully support the efforts to find a way of sharing the costs and one of us polls USA directly. Yours, Axel -- Domain: fischer@netmbx.UUCP Europe: ...!tmpmbx!netmbx!fischer Rest of world: ...!uunet!pyramid!tmpmbx!netmbx!fischer =====> Beam me up, Scotty - there is no intelligent life down here ! <=====
rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) (06/25/89)
In article <1631@krondor.UUCP> mike@krondor.UUCP (Mike Hoffmann) writes: |*Noone* can tell me it costs that much. Even if not all poll unido |directly. A cost-distribution system would make it almost free for |everyone. unido claims that they have administrational problems |to do so, and I'm almost inclined to believe them, as german |bureaucracy in the educational area is unbelievable. Sounds to me like Rick Adams of UUNET should be getting his passport in order. Seems like there is an opportunity to create a UUNET like facility(s) in Europe and sell Usenet at cost. Plus, the true costs of trans-atlantic mail could be allocated to the sending system, instead of just dumping all the cost of mail sent or received on our European friends. -- Rick Richardson | JetRoff "di"-troff to LaserJet Postprocessor|uunet!pcrat!dry2 PC Research,Inc.| Mail: uunet!pcrat!jetroff; For anon uucp do:|for Dhrystone 2 uunet!pcrat!rick| uucp jetroff!~jetuucp/file_list ~nuucp/. |submission forms. jetroff Wk2200-0300,Sa,Su ACU {2400,PEP} 12013898963 "" \d\r\d ogin: jetuucp
donegan@stanton.UUCP (Steve Donegan) (06/26/89)
I beleive that all people should have equal rights to the access of information. Big smiley intended... If anyone in Germany or anywhere else in the world wants a feed and is willing to pay the long distance charges I have a feed via Telebit or 300/1200/2400 waiting and ready. Just ask. -- Steven P. Donegan Sr. Telecommunications Engineer, Western Digital stanton!donegan || donegan@stanton.UUCP || donegan%stanton@UUCP
wcs) (06/26/89)
In article <1631@krondor.UUCP> mike@krondor.UUCP (Mike Hoffmann) writes:
]Neither do I! The german backbone is "unido" that is the University
]of Dortmund. They *charge* that amount of money! Simple phone transfer
]costs are *not* included. What they charge that for, especially considering
]the number of links they feed, is beyond me, and anyone I asked.
]We tried to find some terms of agreement that would give us ("us" is
]the Sub-Net, a loose connection of private netnews-sites) cheaper rates.
]This path has somehow ended in bureaucratic bog.
Perhaps you could negotiate with mcvax about becoming an
alternate backbone for Germany (or even the *primary*
backbone for Germany, if your rates are better!) You'll
have to deal with international shipment from the
Netherlands, but it should be cheaper than calling the USA.
]Well, we even tried polling a US site directly! But sadly, site
]boulder doesn't appear to be very stable, though I had thought it to
A better feed is uunet. It costs money for connect time,
but the rates were fairly low and service appears to be
excellent. No nonsense about cutting off your feed if you
redistribute, either.
--
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218 Holmdel NJ 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs
# also cloned at 201-271-4712 tarpon.att.com!wcs
# ... counting stars by candle light ....philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) (06/26/89)
In article <4679@ficc.uu.net>, peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: > In article <16720@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>, jfh@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US (John F. Haugh II) writes: > > Not everyone on the net is a 'big boy'. It's just that in Europe, the little > boys pay big-boy rates. > > Perhaps the hobbyists in Germany need to form an alliance independant of > the backbone. From what I understand, they're doing that in Italy. WERE doing - see the latest issue of the EUUG Newsletter, EUnet column for the latest information on this 'competition'. Philip
jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) (06/26/89)
wnp@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Wolf Paul) wrote: > The telecommunications monopolies in Europe are not private companies, > but state-owned and state-run. In the UK British Telecom and Mercury are both private companies; BT was once a state organization, i.e. it had its infrastructure paid for by the taxpayer, but was sold to Thatcher's pals at a giveaway price several years ago. Both firms are now going for the big business comms market; unprofitable customers like hobbyists with modems, the disabled, and people in rural areas can get stuffed. BT's prices to domestic users have increased far ahead of inflation; Mercury price structure is aimed at excluding domestic users. The shareholders of both, of course, benefit massively from the state (e.g. by Mercury getting to run its optical fibres along the new motorways built with State money by the private road construction industry, one of the other major contributors to Tory Party funds). But then, that's what the state's for, isn't it? -- Jack Campin * Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND. 041 339 8855 x6045 wk 041 556 1878 ho INTERNET: jack%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk USENET: jack@glasgow.uucp JANET: jack@uk.ac.glasgow.cs PLINGnet: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jack
uri@arnor.UUCP (Uri Blumenthal) (06/26/89)
From article <1631@krondor.UUCP>, by mike@krondor.UUCP (Mike Hoffmann): > > I think I accumulated enough new enemies for now! > No, Mike, no hate. Just pity...
dnewton@carroll1.UUCP (Dave Newton) (06/27/89)
I hate to put a damper on all this, but could we limit postings to this
group to sources? he syas, disregarding his own message.
Surely this could be discussed somewhere else.
--
"If I cannot create it, I do not understand it"
-Richard Feynman
David L. Newton (414) 524-7465 dnewton@carroll1.cc.edu
=8-) (smiley w/ a mohawk) (414) 524-7343 uunet!marque!carroll1!dnewtonjpp@specialix.co.uk (John Pettitt) (06/27/89)
From article <1550@stl.stc.co.uk>, by dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright): > I regret that I do not know a UK public access site, > though I believe they exist. There are two `public' access system in the uk that carry news: cix.uucp which runs the CoSy system similar to Bix in the US but with news as well. (Mail to ukc!slxsys!cix!postmaster) ibmpcug.co.uk - The IBM PC users group (mail to postmaster@ibmpcug.co.uk) -- John Pettitt, Specialix, Giggs Hill Rd, Thames Ditton, Surrey, U.K., KT7 0TR {backbone}!ukc!slxsys!jpp jpp%slxinc@uunet.uu.net jpp@specialix.co.uk Tel: +44-1-941-2564 Fax: +44-1-941-4098 Telex: 918110 SPECIX G >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
lance@lancelot.UUCP (Lancelot of Caid) (06/28/89)
In article <1550@stl.stc.co.uk>, dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) writes:
< Some posters have suggested that European sites should 'get a
< Trailblazer and import news directly'. Well, TB's would help, so
< lots of us are getting them (UKUUG has negociated a discount on
< them, as have some other national UUG's), but are not *that* magic.
< A news feed from the US of all technical groups - leaving out all talk
< and most rec as at present in Europe - would cost about $50,000 per
< year in transmission costs over IPSS (X.25), but only about $10,000
< via Trailblazer. Would you pay $10K for news? Some would, but
< not many.
Ok. So it costs $10K. Let's see. 10,000/20 sites (i figure there are more
than 20 sites that could all feed each other with ONE site calling the
US. That comes out to $500/year. That's $41.00/month. That's less than
my phone bill WITHOUT long distance! I pay 3 times that much now just for
my phones! How about 40 sites? That makes it $20.50/month. That's not
bad! All it takes is a group of people to work together. That is not
that hard to do considering how much they would save!
<
< So we have to club together to cover transmission costs to our national
< backbones. We also have to pay for the associated computer and staff
< costs -- most Eunet backbone sites are universities, and being both
< non-profitmaking and also less well endowed than many US universities
< they cannot absorb the cost of providing a service to lots of other
< establishments that are not directly associated, (why should the
< University of Kent (ukc) subsidise STC or University Dortmund (unido)
< subsidise netmbx? Explain your reasons using not more than 5000
< words. Your paper will be marked by the University's auditors).
You all pay more for your News feed now and you would not have to deal
with the backbones! You can create your own for less!
< Even in the UK the subscription cost of a news feed ($50 per month),
< very reasonable for any commercial organisation, is too much for
< someone trying to get their own news feed to their own home computer,
< and I understand it is higher in Germany. Such people could sign up
< with a public access site, and read news there instead of trying to get
< it all on their own machine. In Germany, netmbx (Berlin) offers very
< reasonable rates for news reading (plus a little more if you post).
< I do not know which news groups netmbx gets. Mail me if you want
< their PSS number. I regret that I do not know a UK public access site,
< though I believe they exist.
Public access sites are another way to go. That lowers the costs for everyone
while supplying news and mail to as many people as possible! I run such
a site at my house. I get a full news feed and charge just enough to break even.
Nothing more. If people work together then the costs come out to be VERY
minimal!
--
Lance Ellinghouse (A.K.A Lancelot of Caid)
"Life is a game of Chess, some are Kings, some Queens, some pawns, and
some just get taken." - Lancelot
ucla-an!hermix!lancelot!lance; ucla-an!hermix!lancelot!lance@ee.UCLA.EDUigb@Fulcrum.BT.CO.UK (Ian G Batten) (06/30/89)
In article <292@lancelot.UUCP> lance@lancelot.UUCP (Lancelot of Caid) writes: >In article <1550@stl.stc.co.uk>, dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) writes: >< Some posters have suggested that European sites should 'get a >< Trailblazer and import news directly'. Well, TB's would help, so >< via Trailblazer. Would you pay $10K for news? Some would, but >< not many. >Ok. So it costs $10K. Let's see. 10,000/20 sites (i figure there are more >than 20 sites that could all feed each other with ONE site calling the >US. That comes out to $500/year. That's $41.00/month. That's less than >my phone bill WITHOUT long distance! I pay 3 times that much now just for >my phones! How about 40 sites? That makes it $20.50/month. That's not >bad! All it takes is a group of people to work together. That is not >that hard to do considering how much they would save! > Just what is this discussion proving? The situation of us all sharing the link and paying a small amount is exactly what happens. Then people reckon it's evil and rude. Then people say why don't we do what we're already doing. Europe co-operates, because shipping the news over the Atlantic RELIABLY, with it getting stopped at short notice, is EXPENSIVE. If you can borrow or steal resources from someone to do it, and they won't stop it next Wednesday, fine. But few companies want to get into that. I don't quite understand why US companies that shi[ the news over themselves won't distribute it on, but maybe the American way applies only to those that don't pay their own bills. ian -- Ian G Batten, BT Fulcrum - igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk - ...!uunet!ukc!fulcrum!igb
hsu@kampi.hut.fi (Heikki Suonsivu) (07/05/89)
In article <209@cat.Fulcrum.BT.CO.UK> igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes: >RELIABLY, with it getting stopped at short notice, is EXPENSIVE. However, some people can't afford this reliable service, and would certainly be happy with less money and lots of stops, cuts, failures. We have local network which one can join by just paying his own calls. I would like to know how many networks like there exists in Europe right now so we could arrange routings? Being a network-freak, I would be interested to work with this a little bit, as reasonable-priced news would certainly be worth some time spent. - Heikki Suonsivu @ 2:504/1 2:504/7 Kuutamokatu 5 A 7/02210 Espoo/FINLAND ..!mcvax!santra!kampi!hsu hsu@fingate.BITNET hsu@kampi.hut.fi voice +358-0-1351300 fax -1351948 v22bis -1351526 Out of space. Spaaaceeee.
desnoyer@apple.com (Peter Desnoyers) (07/06/89)
Has anyone considered getting someone in the U.S. to call Europe,
and then reimbursing them? AT&T is $0.65/minute at night to Germany.
(this rate quoted from California - don't know if it's cheaper from
the East Coast)
Peter Desnoyers
Apple ATG
(408) 974-4469