karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (06/22/89)
In article <114@utower.UUCP> fischer@utower.UUCP (Axel Fischer) writes: >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. >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. >>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. This sounds like something we can help with :-) Get ten or so systems together, and have one of them poll us. We'll feed 'ya over there in Germany if you can call here. We have a Telebit, and the spare capacity. And we're reliable as a news source. Then distribute the newsgroups you get and take donations to defray the costs. Once you have a few sites doing this Unido will look quite a bit less attractive... and they will fall to the almighty God of Capitalism...... At $1.50 a minute, and a full newsfeed running about 20-30 minutes a day on the Telebit, you're looking at a little over a thousand bucks a month -- split 10 ways, that's HALF the Unido cost! And once you're free of unido, you can do better -- get 20, 30, or even 50 sites involved. Well worth doing, if you ask me. I run this site, so it's certainly within my power to give out newsfeeds. Any other European sites with the same problem are welcome to contact us as well; we're flexible and have spare Telebit capacity. Down with monopolies! -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"