pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (12/31/90)
On 27 Dec 90 11:08:42 GMT, peter@micromuse.co.uk (Peter Galbavy) said:
somebody> UKC has a monopoly so it can charge what it likes.
peter> In article <JIM.90Dec24154456@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk>
peter> jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) writes:
jim> False. There's nothing stopping you or anyone else from arranging
jim> your own transatlantic links and paying for the calls yourself. If
jim> you honestly think you can get a better, cheaper service by doing
jim> it all yourself, then go ahead. I think you'll soon find that the
jim> reality is somewhat different.
peter> NO NO NO NO
peter> Wanna bet ? I was at one point quite happy to go direct to a site
peter> in the US, but I could not register a domain name because UKC
peter> "was responsible for this in the UK" (sorry 'bout bad speeling).
The old problem of the NRS (not "...!mcsun!ukc") controlling the 'uk'
domain: there are several aspects to this argument, as it involves
traffic and gateways between Janet/PSS, the Internet, and several UUCP
networks.
This article is going to be long, because I will try to provide a brief
summary of all such aspects, even of the little known or often not well
understood or misrepresented ones. This article is being crossposted to
comp.mail.uucp, comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains and uk.misc, because it
covers non simple issues of gatewaying between the three zones.
The various aspects of the name registration problem are more or less:
1) The NRS has no relationship that I know of to "UKnet". The NRS is a
government service that provides a registry of symbolic names for United
Kingdom organizations that are reachable via Janet/PSS. To them the
"UKnet" is probably just a nuisance, not being run by the Civil Service,
the more regrettable because they run the UUCP protocols and not the
official coloured books ones. Note that the NRS 'uk' domain is *purely*
a coloured book thing, and does not involve any other networking
standard or organization.
In practice there is some odd arrangement between the two, but
mostly because many sites happen to be both customers of the
University of Kent and are subsidized by the JNT as well.
peter> I do not object to UKC providing the gateway service, because you
peter> may be able to compete either for yourself or commercially, but
peter> they are also the people that maintain the maps, and so the two
peter> functions of domain administration and gateway service seem to
peter> generate a 'conflict of interest' (notice the quotes please) in
peter> that if you want a domain name, you have to pay UKC the standing
peter> charge, even if you do not use their services.
2) The UUCP site "...!mcsun!ukc" is the official *volunteer* keeper, as
far as the USA UUCP people are concerned, of the UUCP maps for the
British Isles (I think Eire included). As such, they *ought* to have the
duty to register, in the portion they manage of the worldwide UUCP maps,
any site that wants to be registered and is based in it, *even if the
site is not one of their customers*, even if the site's connectivity is
only with USA sites.
I do not know if anybody who is not a customer of the University of
Kent ever tried to submit to them a UUCP map entry. I know that in
other countries in similar circumstances registration was *refused*,
quite against all known USENET conventions. There are indeed on uunet
*two* distinct sets of European UUCP maps, with two distinct sets of
sites that collect map entries for each country.
peter> What I would like to see is a body (NRS equivelant for commercial
peter> sites ?) that registers names for a one time charge perhaps (and
peter> a charge for any changes made, each time) - and then let all and
peter> sundry provide services in and out of the UK...
3) It *ought* to be possible to be possible to register a 'gb' top level
domain with the DNS top level domain registry. For some incredible
fudge, the DNS contains a valid (it is registered) but illegal (it
violates DNS rules) 'uk' top level domain, of which the NRS is
responsible, that contains the same set of names as the NRS, with
flipped domain order. In way of principle there ought to be no problem
to having a parallel, purely Internet, 'gb' domain, and sites that were
on both Janet/PSS and Internet could register with different names in
both, like sites in EARN/BITNET or the UUCP networks already do.
There is no obvious candidate for the role of registry of the 'gb'
top level domain. The NRS is obviously disqualified because they are
strictly Janet/PSS oriented, and even hostile to the Internet. I
think that the BSI may be a more credible candidate, if at all.
In other words the NRS is the name registration system for networks
adopting the coloured book standards, the DNS is the one for those
adopting the Internet standards, and the UUCP maps are for those
adopting the UUCP protocols. The three name registration systems do
interact haphazardly with each other, as none of them has provisions for
gateways to other naming zones.
This is the theory on name registration for Janet/PSS and for the
European branch(es) of Internet and the UUCP Zone. In practice some
amusing bits of politics color the issue, as far as the European
branch(es) of the Internet and of the UUCP Zone are concerned, more or
less as follows:
A) It is possible to register non USA based Internet domains as though
they were USA based. Several Canadian sites are registered under both
'ca' and 'edu'; some UK sites are registered under 'com'. Many European
sites are registered under 'sublink.org'. It is not possible to register
sites under 'gb' because there is nobody responsible for that domain. It
is possible to register under 'uk' with the NRS even if you are not in
any way connected with the UKnet or even Janet/PSS (not sure about the
latter though), and in some way this will register you with the DNS as
well, with a valid but illegal domain (this is starting to sound like
Jesuits debating canon law...) name.
B) The EUnet and the UKnet backbone (and most national backbones) will
boyocott traffic between one of their customers and another of their
customers, if the ultimate source/destination is not a customer _and_ is
running the UUCP protocols _and_ is located in Europe. Note that, even
if they they try to claim that billing is the ostensible reason, this is
not because of money problems -- all traffic between two customers of
the UKnet/EUnet must be paid for by the originating site. The boycott is
done _purely_ to make it impossible operating a EUnet/UKnet <-> SUBlink
gateway, even if the gateway site is prepared to pay for all the costs
of the EUnet leg of the traffic, to deny SUBlink sites a larger
connectivity.
Note: the boycott applies *only* to traffic with "competing"
European UUCP networks -- the EUnet/UKnet do not boycott UUCP
traffic outside Europe (USENET), or non UUCP traffic within Europe
(EARN), even if the other party is not a EUnet/UKnet customer (in
which case the party which is a customer has to pay for both the
mail it sends and that which it receives). Thus the absurdity that
UUCP traffic between an European SUBlink site and an European
EUnet/UKnet site *must* be routed via a gateway in another continent,
usually some USENET site, because direct gatewaying between the
two European UUCP networks is not allowed by EUnet/UKnet.
C) So, the EUnet/UKnet backbone are not user groups in any way and will
boycott any direct gateway to any other European UUCP network, thus
denying sites on both networks better connectivity. They provide a
commercial style service to their private customers, and the boycott is
narrowly targeted only against what they perceive as potential suppliers
of the same service (European UUCP mail and news forwarding). Therefore
they are in a very different position from the USENET traditional UUCP
volunteer sites that are regional backbones and UUCP map collection
points.
The latter point has not yet been well understood by most of the USENET
people in the USA (or for that matter by many in Europe as well), which
often therefore do not realize why independent European sites want to
connect directly to them and think they are time wasters.
They tell them to go to their Unix user group, which is pointless,
because European Unix user groups are the source of the problem
(also note that even if they are very cosy to each other, the
European backbone and the user groups are not legally the same
thing). Fortunately there are quite a few USENET sites that seem to
understand the situation and are ready to provide, in true USENET
spirit, connectivity to independent European sites, and even
registration.
--
Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.ukowen@hiper.uucp (Owen Thomas) (01/09/91)
Why can't we have the standing charges merged into the usage charges? How many small sites are there? If more than half the UKUUG membership is composed of small sites, then couldn't someone draft a motion for the next UKUUG meeting "recommending" that UKC change their charging practice? (And why do we HAVE to join UKUUG anyway?) Owen Thomas --- Post: Hipersoft, Chiltern Chambers, Caversham, Reading, RG4 7DH, UK. Mail: owen@hiper.co.uk , or, owen@hiper.uucp , or, ...!ukc!hiper!owen Phone: +44 734 476644 Fax: +44 734 461137
igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) (01/09/91)
In article <1991Jan8.180645.2690@robobar.co.uk> ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) writes: > undergraduates, and of course British Telecom. That's size in numbers. We pay ``the right amount''. Our fees to Kent are around 20 grand a year. I have people reading from another site over nntp, and we pay the extra whatever for them. ian
pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (01/13/91)
On 9 Jan 91 12:11:06 GMT, igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) said: igb> We pay ``the right amount''. Our fees to Kent are around 20 grand igb> a year. I have people reading from another site over nntp, and we igb> pay the extra whatever for them. If you really meant *twenty* (instead of *two*, and a spurious zero) thousand pounds per year, you are insane :-). Getting a full news feed from UUNET by trailbalzer on British Telecom international lines costs less than half that sum (and you *are* BT!), and if you used Mercury :-) instead it would be even lower. You could cut your costs in half and then pass on News to the rest of the UK for free. Please do not reply "but UKC provides me with a service", because this is not true. You have to do all the work yourself, UKC only sells you the right to receive a copy of their news. Period. A pure byte stream. In case you are paying two and not twenty thousand pounds per year, it is still a sizable percentage of the cost of fetching news from UUNET, or any other USa backbone site, by TrailBlazer. You band with two or three sites like you and everybody will bless you. Unless I am totally wrong, the UKC role as providers of news is strictly to receive it from the EUnet backbone and redistribute it, a task that every site that cares to be a feed does. Unless I am totally wrong, UKC is not alone in the UK as a site that feeds many others. Uhmmmm. Let me think... How much is the Computer Board paying UKC to get news from the EUnet backbone? More or less than the cost of a TrailBlazer feed from UUNET? I suspect that any academic site might well submit a *much* lower bid by just getting a feed from UUNET, *without otherwise changing anything of their work*. I still haven't found out what they put into the water in Aberystwyth... -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk
sfleming@cs.hw.ac.uk (Stewart T. Fleming) (01/13/91)
In article <PCG.91Jan12194157@teachk.cs.aber.ac.uk>, pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: |> On 9 Jan 91 12:11:06 GMT, igb@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) said: |> |> igb> We pay ``the right amount''. Our fees to Kent are around 20 grand |> igb> a year. I have people reading from another site over nntp, and we |> igb> pay the extra whatever for them. |> |> If you really meant *twenty* (instead of *two*, and a spurious zero) |> thousand pounds per year, you are insane :-). |> Yes. Jim Reid elsewhere gave an estimate of UKCs costs as "not less than 250K p.a." How many sites are there in this country paying 20K per year for a full news feed ? More than, or less than 13 ? |> -- |> Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: Stewart -- sfleming@cs.hw.ac.uk ...ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!sfleming "Before starting any programming project, try explaining it to your cat."
dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (01/14/91)
In the referenced article pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
#igb> We pay ``the right amount''. Our fees to Kent are around 20 grand
#
#If you really meant *twenty* (instead of *two*, and a spurious zero)
#thousand pounds per year, you are insane :-).
I'm sure ibg does mean #20,000 - but look at the subject; that's news PLUS
mail. Large sites like BT (and STL) usually pay a lot more than small
ones because the volume charges for international mail mount up. Most of
us have no interest in running our own world-wide mail systems, at a much
higher cost (one person-year in industry costs a LOT more than #20k).
Locally, we see the best source of cost saving being a direct leased line to
(e.g.) UKC so we can join the Internet properly, with higher fixed costs
but no volume cost. A private user would not find this so practical :-)
If anyone wants to find what ukc's current charge rates are they can simply
mail information@ukc.ac.uk with Subject: charges and they'll get a list.
[I think we all agree that it would be nice if UKC's most recent accounts
were available in the same way!].
Summarising the information - mail costs in 1991 are a standing charge of
#220 ($400) per annum for academic sites, #380 ($700) per annum for
commercial ones. The volume charge is 3p/KByte (#30/MByte) for mail outside
the UK (UK mail is free), plus of course any BT PSS or other charges for the
connection (UK PSS charges work out at about #4 per MByte - a Trailblazer is
a lot cheaper if you take news too).
News costs #360 per annum regardless of volume.
Sites can take news or mail or both. As has been said elsewhere, most
academic sites have the service 'free' because its covered by a block grant;
the figures above apply to those not covered.
The charges apply no matter how a site gets mail/news. In fact sites such
as STL that connect directly to UKC all feed a number of other sites in
return for the privilege (UKC's volume charging system will recognise what
the final site is and bill accordingly - though we do pay extra BT
transport costs to handle other people's mail).
Piercarlo has said that UKC won't treat a group of enthusiasts as a single
site for mail/news purposes. I don't think this is true - I recall a
posting last year from UKC saying that they would. But the group would
have to organise themselves so they appeared as a single address for mail,
news and billing - if UKC had to bill or route things differently for each
member then they would be justified in charging for each one too.
So if anyone wants to form a club for mail/news why not go ahead and do so,
instead of moaning that you can't? You'd have to organise your own mail
routing internal to the club of course, but that's what most sites with
more than one computer do anyway. Obviously you'll need to contact UKC
first to confirm that I'm right about their agreeing, but I'd be very
suprised if they won't so long as its not a trick to get cheap connections
for commercial organisations and so long as the club has a single email
address and a single billing point. After all some of the existing UK
public access sites work almost like this and nobody has suggested that
they are not allowed.
Regards, David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK
dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWW
"Do not speak of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything,
every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each
of us deserve nothing, not a mouthfull of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten
while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for
the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man
earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of *deserving*, of *earning*, and
you will begin to be able to think."
Odo, The Prison Letters (U.LeGuin, The Dispossessed)ngse18@castle.ed.ac.uk (J R Evans) (01/14/91)
dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) posted a useful summary of ukc's current charges; allow me to cross a few t's which might otherwise lead to misunderstanding ... >Sites can take news or mail or both. But if they take news, they must still pay the standing charge for UKnet registration. Net minimum cost for news alone is #580 per annum, to an academic site not covered by the block grant. > As has been said elsewhere, most >academic sites have the service 'free' because its covered by a block grant; >the figures above apply to those not covered. Replace 'most' by 'some'. I don't have the ukc figures in front of me, but I recall that about half of current academic subscribers are covered by the block grant. There is a lot of the academic and research community without ukc mail or news. It seems a reasonable assumption that any site would register for mail, at least, if this were free of cost to them, so it is unlikely that many unregistered sites are covered by the block grant. I don't know whether the cost of news to eligible sites is covered by the block grant - I'm under the impression even they must pay extra. Can anyone enlighten us? The source of my information is ukc's current information pack - I'm trying to get a feed set up to my home site. Russ Evans BGS Edinburgh
pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (01/15/91)
On 31 Dec 90 13:57:54 GMT, I had written:
pcg> B) The EUnet and the UKnet backbone (and most national backbones)
pcg> will boyocott traffic between one of their customers and another of
pcg> their customers, if the ultimate source/destination is not a
pcg> customer _and_ is running the UUCP protocols _and_ is located in
pcg> Europe. [ ... ]
pcg> Note: the boycott applies *only* to traffic with "competing"
pcg> European UUCP networks -- the EUnet/UKnet do not boycott UUCP
pcg> traffic outside Europe (USENET), or non UUCP traffic within Europe
pcg> (EARN), even if the other party is not a EUnet/UKnet customer (in
pcg> which case the party which is a customer has to pay for both the
pcg> mail it sends and that which it receives).
Some people have expressed skepticism. Well, here is a digest of an
exchange of one year agho on the subject. I have not deleted or mended
any part of the text, just reflown it here and there to enhance
readability. I understand that the situation has improved a very little
bit in the meantime.
From: teus@fs1-cg.oce.nl (Teus Hagen)
Subject: Re: i2ack request for news/email supply connection
Message-ID: <1035@oce-rd1.oce.nl>
Date: 16 Jan 89 13:32:43 GMT
Organization: EUUG
The news costs in Europe, and students cannot afford news in Europe:
Transport of data over an ocean costs money. The way to make
news available to as many as possble readers in Europe is
either sharing the (PTT) costs, or have someone fully pay
for it. The last solution: nobody has stand up to do it (in
the past DEC and Philips did it, thanks). So we have the
first: sharing of transport costs.
This is a very riscy situation: ie if someone does gets it
cheaper via other routes initially, and will supply others,
he will cause a snowball running of cheap intermediate news,
destroy the current situation, end finally end up in the
same situation of EUnet news: more costs. Sites will jump
from one snowball to the other..., creating problematic
situations for existing service providers in the
intermediate time.
So think carefully if one will try to start such connections.
At this moment the costs for news articles consists of three basics:
1)US link costs (because of sharing the costs and cheap bulk
connection the costs is quite low) from Us to European central
node. Cost is dependent to the amount of European news
subscribers. So really very low costs.
2)costs from European central node to the national backbone. Costs
are rather low, as divided by national news subscribers.
3)costs from national backbone to the news subscriber. This is the main
costs.
What you see is that due to the large amount of subscribers costs are
basically caused by the national siruation. For i2ack it means: get
as many as possible subscribers hooked up to the national italian
backbone! And your costs will be lower as they can be done now (do
not expect that others will carry your subscription costs for a
longer period!). Or do not parasitize on European news subscribers.
The same rules apply for email. As currently rented lines are used
for some connections (eg US-Europe). So with fixed prices, email
transport costs are shared as well.
I hope I've explained why I, personally will not honor such a
connection request.
teus hagen
____________________________
This note does not necessarily represent the position of Oce-Nederland
b.v.. Therefore no liability or responsibility for whatever will be
accepted.
From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst)
Subject: Re: French and UK sites wanted for EUcon.
Message-ID: <55538@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Date: 18 Jan 89 20:44:31 GMT
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
>In article <96@i2ack.UUCP> venta@i2ack.UUCP (Paolo Ventafridda) writes:
>>Watch out, mcvax and unido rejects mail to/from i2ack since i didn't
>>subscribe EUnet..
In article <303@dcs.UUCP> wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) writes:
> Does this mean what I think it does? Does the EUnet backbone reject mail
> which has a non-subscribing European site anywhere in the path, i.e.
> xyz!mcvax!uunet!i2ack?
Yes. Any EUNet backbone will eat any mail to/from any European site
that is not a member of EUNet.
>If the former, then this is a most blatant violation of the USENET spirit
>I have come across.
Well, let's see. EUNet is organized something like this:
kddlab------\ /---i2unix
\ /
North_america-----uunet-------mcvax-----unido
/ \
munnari-----/ \---other_Eu_national_backbones
In other words, there is a single point of entry for all traffic
outside of EUNet, and major hubs in each country. The topology is
designed to minimize the largest cost: crossing international
boundaries. Members of EUNet pay both fixed membership costs and
packet charges.
Some sites, particularly in Germany, have decided to reduce costs by
setting up direct North American UUCP links. They are still members
of EUNet, though; they pay their annual dues, and use EUNet for
continental traffic. They just use their own links for USA traffic
because the packet charges are lower.
What Paolo is doing is different. He is not an EUNet member. He is
instead setting up an alternative network in Europe to compete
against EUNet. I know the EUNet folks aren't crazy about this, since
it stands to make hash of a lot of hard work. but they aren't trying
to interfere with him either; and as far as I can tell, Paolo is
having a lot of fun doing this.
EUnet is, though, 100% within their rights to refuse to pass mail to
or from his site, or any other eucon site. And there is more to it
than the old, "it's my site to do with as I please" argument.
Consider what's happening here. Since i2ack is not connected to
EUNet, there is only one way for him to get mail to EUNet hosts:
i2ack->pyramid->uunet->mcvax->EUNet_backbone->EUNet_host
This is obviously a lot more expensive than a simple hop within the
EUNet, and EUNet is picking up most of the costs. You could argue
that i2ack doesn't log- ically appear to EUNet to be any different
than any American site, and you'd be right. And that was the case
Paolo tried to make to EUNet. But i2ack is *not* a North American
site. EUNet has made an exception for North America; the membership
has decided that traffic with North America is important, and
therefore they will pay for it. In other words, EUNet is doing a
tremendous favor to all of us folks on this side of the pond, saying
that we are so im- portant to them that they are willing to pay for
the priviledge. But they are not about to subsidize other Eurpoeans;
everyone pays their own fair share.
Paolo is following the traditional Usenet battlecry: "If you don't
like this network, set up your own!" And he's putting his money
where his mouth is. But you can't expect the network he is competing
against to subsidize him. At the least, EUNet runs on a shoestring
budget themselves.
What's this "spirit" stuff any way? Usually it's a euphamism for,
"I'm a poor broke site, so I'll let big rich sites foot my bills."
And by golly, a lot of us have done that over the years. But note
that one reason the "<>" construct was added to pathalias was
because of the number of UUNet subscriber sites who were unwilling
to accept passthrough mail. When the money is up front and in plain
view, people are a lot more careful. And, frankly, a lot more fair.
Even if less democratic.
<csg>
From: venta@i2ack.UUCP (Paolo Ventafridda)
Subject: Re: i2ack request for news/email supply connection
Message-ID: <102@i2ack.UUCP>
Date: 20 Jan 89 01:04:38 GMT
Organization: Sublink Headquarters, Milano, Italy
In article <1035@oce-rd1.oce.nl>, teus@fs1-cg.oce.nl (Teus Hagen) writes:
> The news costs in Europe, and students cannot afford news in Europe:
> Transport of data over an ocean costs money. The way to make news available
> to as many as possble readers in Europe is either sharing the (PTT) costs,
> or have someone fully pay for it. The last solution: nobody has stand up
> to do it (in the past DEC and Philips did it, thanks).
I had written a long article about costs, and the word "sharing",
but i felt it would break my "armistice" with mcvax &C., so i didn't
include it. Instead, i would like to ask if it is possible to get
the list of costs of EUnet, along with the one for the trafic of
i2unix.
> So we have the first: sharing of transport costs.
> This is a very riscy situation: ie if someone does gets it cheaper via
> other routes initially, and will supply others, he will cause a snowball
> running of cheap intermediate news, destroy the current situation,
> end finally end up in the same situation of EUnet news: more costs.
Whom are you talking about? I2ack is on Usenet! It is cheaper for
us to have a direct link to USA than paying i2unix! We already have
News.
>
> So think carefully if one will try to start such connections.
You didn't get the main point: EUcon is a standalone network. It has
gateways on Usenet and wherever we need to go. There are a bunch of
EUCON systems which are also on EUnet. Just think of EUcon as EUnet
for poor people, and you'll get the idea :-) .
>
> At this moment the costs for news articles consists of three basics:
> 1)US link costs (because of sharing the costs and cheap bulk connection the costs is
> quite low) from Us to European central node.
quite low? i thought they were very high.
> Cost is dependent to the amount of European news subscribers. So really very low costs.
Again very low costs. Uhm...
> 2)costs from European central node to the national backbone.
> Costs are rather low, as divided by national news subscribers.
Low costs again. I think we have a different concept of what
"a-lot-of-money " is.
> 3)costs from national backbone to the news subscriber. This is the main costs.
>
You SHOULD be right.. but this should be up to the node. I mean, it's me that
decide how often to poll the backbone.
> What you see is that due to the large amount of subscribers costs are basically
> caused by the national siruation. For i2ack it means: get as many as possible
> subscribers hooked up to the national italian backbone!
..but in Italy one has to pay for the single SUBSCRIPTION a lot of
$$$. Thousands of $$$. This money is spent without sending or
receiving a single byte. In addition, one has to pay for the
backbone transmission costs, which charges 1024 bytes 0.25 $ , PLUS
an yearly additional fee for News. With the same money i buy an
X.25 line and go straight to US links. Finally, one has to call its
backbone, which -in our case- has a wrong PAD configuration, and
allows only 1200 baud phone connections. This is it.
> And your costs will be lower as they can be done now (do not expect that others will
> carry your subscription costs for a longer period!).
Again, i am NOT asking for a news feed in europe. You missed the
sense of my message.
> Or do not parasitize on European news subscribers.
I don't feel like a parasite. If anyone on EUnet wants to send mail
to US through us, he can do it.
Anyway, my previous message meant this: we are looking for new
nodes, so that we can forward mail in Europe without routing through
EUnet backbones. That's it. The problem seems not to be the
"transatlantic" link with uunet: EUnet wants money also for sending
within its nodes. Also if nodes are willing to get the mail, to
forward it etc., backbones stop it.
Finally, i would like to point out that i2ack is just a node. Our
network is called Sublink, and actually has half the number of nodes
i2unix has. If EUnet would allow our mail coming from uunet to
reach europe (as for a common bunch of nodes on Usenet), we would
offer exactly the same service as i2unix, for FREE. We are not
supported by anyone: if we got the money i2unix asks his nodes, i
would buy a Sperry 5050 too.
Greetings, Paolo
--
Paolo Ventafridda Via Ottoboni 6,20148 Milano - Italy Tel.+392-4032432
EUnet:blue@altger eucon:venta@i2ack BANG:{pyramid,altger,tmpmbx}!i2ack!venta
# If you mail me on i2ack, use pyramid path; i'm on eunet's lock-list..(sic) #
From: jim@eda.com (Jim Budler)
Subject: Re: French and UK sites wanted for EUcon.
Message-ID: <459@eda.com>
Date: 21 Jan 89 08:57:16 GMT
In article <105@i2ack.UUCP> venta@i2ack.UUCP (Paolo Ventafridda) writes:
#
# Previous message from Carl (csg@pyramid) perfectly describes the situation:
# i myself took notice of this, and i am doing my best to "lock" (reject)
# outgoing mail out of uunet and eucon. That is, any mail on EUnet.
# Some user on Sublink still didn't get this limitation..
#
# At least these messages on EUnet and Usenet described how the whole
# thing works :-)
# Paolo
I may be incorrect on how I understand this but:
1. Eucon nodes can send mail to the world, except for Eunet.
2. Eunet nodes can send mail to the world, except for Eucon.
3. The world can send mail to either, as long as they don't
attempt to send it *thru* the other.
In the above, receive/from can be substituted for send/to.
In the above Sublink appears to be synonymous with Eucon.
I feel appalled that in this time of increased connectivity, we now
are creating a situation in which some people on Usenet cannot
communicate with other people on Usenet.
I have no desire to cast blame on anyone, but I feel that this situation
is unacceptable.
jim
--
Jim Budler address = uucp: ...!{decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim
domain: jim@eda.com
From: wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul)
Subject: Re: French and UK sites wanted for EUcon.
Message-ID: <308@dcs.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jan 89 14:34:19 GMT
In article <32219@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Bill Wisner <wisner@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>>I feel appalled that in this time of increased connectivity, we now
>>are creating a situation in which some people on Usenet cannot
>>communicate with other people on Usenet.
>
>Picture: a EUCon user sends mail to pyramid, to uunet, to EUNet.
>Simple enough, no?
It would be, except a recent posting indicated that the EUNet
backbone sites will throw out anything with the name of a EUCon site
(or for that matter, any European site which is not registered with
EUNet) anywhere in the path.
This is where I have my problem with this system:
I can understand and accept that EUNet does not want to pass mail
from one unregistered site to another, but as long as either the
destination or the origin of a message is within EUNet, they ought
to pass it on, as a courtesy to their own member sites.
If they do not do that, then I question (as a USENIX member) whether
UUNET should allow them reduced rate or free access to uunet -- they
are not legitimately fulfilling the gateway function which is the
basis for their special treatment.
I am in a situation where I might soon be moving to Europe, and will
probably join the national User Group in whichever country I go to,
and thus become a registered EUNet site. I do not want EUNet telling
me who I can correspond with, after I pay whatever membership or
access charges apply.
--
Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101
UUCP: killer!dcs!wnp ESL: 62832882
DOMAIN: dcs!wnp@killer.dallas.tx.us TLX: 910-380-0585 EES PLANO UD
From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst)
Subject: Re: i2ack request for news/email supply connection
Message-ID: <56046@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Date: 22 Jan 89 20:21:43 GMT
In article <102@i2ack.UUCP>, venta@i2ack.UUCP (Paolo Ventafridda) writes:
> In addition, one has to pay for the backbone transmission costs, which
> charges 1024 bytes 0.25 $ , PLUS an yearly additional fee for News.
In article <9198@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Don Speck) writes:
>If that's U.S. dollars, that's a HUNDRED times the average cost per
>kilobyte that Brian Reid estimates in his monthly readership summaries.
>
>If this is accurate: Why does Eunet have to cost so much?
The (typical) cost that EUNet must pay to their X.25 provider is
approximately $0.19 per kilobyte (actually $12 per kilosegment),
plus $12/hour connect time, plus monthly service fees that run from
$500 to $1500 per month. Work it out, and you'll find EUNet isn't
exactly raking in the bucks. These links are also fairly slow, which
limits traffic in a practical sense. Generally, dialup is not an
effective alternative (more expensive and less reliable), and Trail-
Blazers aren't legal.
And you wonder why the Europeans complain about Dinnette-For-Sale ads?
The big problem in Europe isn't a monopolistic EUNet; it's
monopolistic and paranoid PTTs (Post-Telephone-Telegraph).
<csg>
From: wisner@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bill Wisner)
Subject: Re: French and UK sites wanted for EUcon.
Message-ID: <32389@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 89 02:32:19 GMT
By now it is quite clear that EUnet does, indeed, torch mail from
EUcon, regardless of how it arrived.
So I'll hop on the bandwagon and start flaming them. As far as EUnet
is concerned, EUcon sites should look exactly like normal North
American USENET sites. Making an artificial and arbitrary
distinction is revolting.
But it's hardly the first revolting thing they have ever done. Soon
after I first registered killer as killer.dallas.tx.us, I got a
piece of bounced mail from mcvax. The attached error message rather
nastily informed me that "US" was not a valid top-level domain, and
that mcvax would not pass mail from bogus domains. (That action
alone might, possibly, conceivably, be excusable, but if they are
going to do it they had better at least get their facts straight.)
From: venta@i2ack.UUCP (Paolo Ventafridda)
Subject: Re: French and UK sites wanted for EUcon.
Message-ID: <118@i2ack.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 89 09:59:29 GMT
Organization: Sublink Headquarters, Milano, Italy
In article <2162@van-bc.UUCP>, sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) writes:
> In article <459@eda.com> jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) writes:
>
> I would suggest that RIDICULOUS is a far better choice.
I would call it TRAGICAL..
>
> BTW my reading of the previous articles on this situation was a little
> different. I believe that the newer of the two nets was happy to forward
> mail to it's internal sites that originated from the other (after it got
> sent to US and back) but the original network refused to forward mail to
> it's internal sites that originated from the newer network.
Correct. I will also make an example of what's currently going on
now. There's an EUnet node here (an i2unix one) which will be
posting it's mail for USA and receive News from us. Anyone which can
reach us, can go through our links (at least on SUBLINK).
>
> Seems as though the original network has higher internal costs and wants
> everyone to play with their ball and bat to help them recoup their costs.
For sure EUnet has high costs. I asked about them , but i got no
answer. Probably the News traffic takes most of it. Personally, i
don't agree with receiving news groups such as soc. and rec. and
anything which is not related to The Art Of Computing Or Backboning
(comp. news.). Better, i'd like to receive them, sure, but since
they cost too much money, let's forget them.
The main problem is that - from my point of view - EUnet spends too
much. Costs are shared, but who can afford them? Few people. So
there are 2 main categories of hosts on EUnet: rich sites (some of
these very generous, which would support us for free, i.e. PAYING
for OUR connections - but EUnet complains.) and normal sites, some
of which are given the B.F.B.P.A. ( Best Friend of the Backbone's
Postmaster Award ) and pay nothing for EUnet, since their backbone
simply charge the others..
>
> I would think that if the newer net is indeed less expensive then the
> situation will indeed sort itself out. Over time newer sites will connect to
> the less expensive of the two nets and some sites will switch or connect to
> both.
NO. EUnet is a strong network; it works fine, except for costs. We
cannot offer the same services, not now and not in the future. My
personal wish is that someday EUcon will grow up, and allow <sub>
sites which cannot afford EUnet to exchange mail all the same. There
is a BIG difference among - say - i2ack and i2unix (no relationship
among "i2": they claimed it was copyrighted but it was not, so i
didn't change the name, what the hell): i2unix offers a fast and
reliable mail service. It polls mcvax once every 30-60 minutes. I
poll pyramid 3 times a day. I don't care about receiving a letter
one day later, and SUBLINK does not offer such efficiency. We point
to the cheapest way of networking, within a decent result. This
policy is just fine for some people, while for others it's not.
This reminds me a conversation i had with a local EUnet postmaster
(a woman) who ended up saying:
" You said we can have a link, but how often do you poll USA ?"
" ..well..3 times a day, it depends.."
"Ah-ah! You see: i2unix polls mcvax once every hour!"
" I know. But how often do YOU poll i2unix [ at 2400 baud via phone call ]?"
"Once a night! It costs money! "
Here, we have a good example of a problem of costs: this silly
postmaster could have accepted my offer (no money..good offer i
think!) but went for i2unix cause they have a better service. COURSE
THEY HAVE! You pay 4 that! So this node does not receive News. They
cost too much. Stupid woman.. She was talking about a next domain
for Italy ( .ita ), and did not realized that italy is out of the
network right now. Did you ever see a message here coming from an
italian site (not i2unix)?
Its impossible. The only one i saw was on eunet.test (i read that in
germany) some time ago. Very few nodes receive News in Italy; the
total amount of nodes is 44 , many of which are FAKE nodes (DEAD
hosts, or such..). However i2unix did not think about taking only a
few newsgroups, and leave the others for better times. They got them
all.
--
Paolo Ventafridda Via Ottoboni 6,20148 Milano - Italy Tel.+392-4032432
EUnet:blue@altger EUcon:venta@i2ack BANG:{pyramid,altger,tmpmbx}!i2ack!venta
# This signature on i2unix costs 70 Lire (240 bytes); a phone call costs 80 L.#
From: news@oresoft.uu.net (Randy Bush)
Subject: Re: i2ack request for news/email supply connection
Message-ID: <606@oresoft.uu.net>
Date: 26 Jan 89 17:33:25 GMT
In article <56046@pyramid.pyramid.com> Carl S. Gutekunst writes:
>These links are also fairly slow, which limits traffic in a practical sense.
Interestingly, FidoNet (for which I run the netmail equialent of
uunet) uses the ackless Zmodem streaming protocol, which is somewhat
more efficient over X.25 links than uucp-g. Originally, FidoNet was
XModem, which was abyssmal; but, as the costs were coming out of
individuals' pockets, the fix was quick.
>Generally, dialup is not an effective alternative (more expensive and less
>reliable), and TrailBlazers aren't legal.
We have found dialup to NL or CH (at 2400 or PEP) to be as reliable
as X.25, but, having no big corporate support, must use dial-up X.28
to get to X.25.
Telebits are approved in many European countries and in Australia.
FidoNet uses Telebits (or Telebit clones such as Ventel's) quite
heavily for overseas as well as intra-continental links.
BTW, FidoNet is seriously testing the new lower-cost symmetric
V.32s, as we are not addicted to the g-spoofing, and have a true
full-duplex protocol (Janus) available which makes the puppies
really scream.
I am not in any way saying that FidoNet is better (or worse) than
USENET. I use both, and, in fact, gate between them. Just trying
to give some perspective from a net that uses different technology.
--
{mcvax!uunet,tektronix,reed,sun!nosun}!oresoft!news (Randy Bush)
From: venta@i2ack.UUCP (Paolo Ventafridda)
Subject: Re: Map for i2ack
Summary: maps from italy
Message-ID: <123@i2ack.UUCP>
Date: 26 Jan 89 19:25:47 GMT
Organization: Sublink Headquarters, Milano, Italy
In article <7075@mailgw.cc.umich.edu>, emv@a.cc.umich.edu (Ed Vielmetti) writes:
>
> well, then, you'd need an alternative map coordinator for italy.
> collect all the site information and ship off the map to rutgers,
> and see if Mel will publish it.
> Now I don't see i2ack in the pyramid map, so I can't get there
> from here automatically, but I'll put that in my local paths file
> and be done with it. Then there's the small matter of getting
> maps for all of i2ack's attached sites....
As in the signature, i am the actual map coordinator. Since we are
receiving these days a lot of subscriptions, i am just waiting for a
definite situation. I posted my map here just to let it go around a
bit; i know i need to send it to rutgers, but until things are fixed
here i won't. For instance, i2ack is now being replaced as a News
Feed by "deejay", the main sponsor for SUBlink, and the only one
with a Trailblazer Plus: our 3 Trailblazer T1000 won't get here
before some time. Also on international calls, the Telebit performs
pretty well, i.e. around 7000 bit/s using g proto. With f proto it
should go much faster. Probably we could approach 10000 ( not a so
bad line..). Let's consider the slowest speed (7000): last night
the average transfer rate was around 80 seconds for 50+ Kbytes. On
Itapac - according to what I2unix told me - this would cost 300 Lire
for each K = 15000 Lire. Our transfer did not cost more that 2700.
If we were using f proto, i think we could gain the 2000< limit.
This means anyway from 5 to 7 times cheaper transfers.
As far as A.Berni (postmaster@i2unix), mcvax DOES HAVE a Trailblazer
too! So..PTT is the real problem? Lets face it. We are talking
about lowering down costs 5-7 .
If all of this mess i caused on EUnet will bring the network to use
faster connections and lower down prices, i won't care too much of
mail rejection. Cause i will afford paying eunet and being an
official european site.
Greets, Paolo
--
Paolo Ventafridda Via Ottoboni 6,20148 Milano - Italy Tel.+392-4032432
EUnet:blue@altger EUcon:venta@i2ack BANG:{pyramid,altger,tmpmbx}!i2ack!venta
SUBLINK Maps & Network management , Italy \/ "Please don't shoot the Operator"
From: venta@i2ack.UUCP (Paolo Ventafridda)
Subject: Re: i2ack request for news/email supply connection
Message-ID: <124@i2ack.UUCP>
Date: 29 Jan 89 20:42:58 GMT
In article <967@acer.stl.stc.co.uk>, dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) writes:
> In article <1989Jan23.183420.7803@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
> I think the i2ack problem is
> that the Italian gateway i2unix that he would have used if he were not
> 'independant' wanted to make very high charges (maybe they don't have
> many users, so their costs per user are very high? So they don't have
> many users...? I don't know why really, this is just a guess).
They don't have users nor sites. Have a look at the map and try
calling the #E people, like i did. Actually, the .it domain is a
dozen of systems. Many of them, cannot call X.25 (if they call
through X.28, i2unix's pad won't work - its buggy); so they call
through phone line. I2unix has 2 phone port, one of which is a 2400
baud line. A friend of us - EUnet registered on i2unix - told us he
simply cant poll i2unix because line is always busy! Anyway, a long
distance call to i2unix is just the same as calling abroad. In
November i2unix proposed to the i2net community to buy Trailbalzer
modems. Since not everybody agreed (they *cost money), still they
go at 2400.
>
> I understand that there are THREE sites in Italy which want to be considered
> the Italian Gateway, and that all three claim the right to the .it domain.
really, who's the third? don't tell me its the OLD italian backbone
(delphi)! I am curious on this, and anyway, the problem of .it
domain is a real one. Let's try thinking in these terms: if we
(sublink) want to be registered on Usenet as legitimate italian
network, what domain should we apply for?
> I can believe that - it's typical Italy! Italy is a lovely place, good food,
> nice people, but it's also DIFFERENT in ways that can really confuse the rest
> of us!
(thanks for food etc.) - but we are not confusing anyone: until now,
i didn't send any map to rutgers, and i won't until we'll be ready
to. We are all discussing in news.sysadmin, and i believe this is
the best place to get opinions, suggestions etc. BEFORE doing
anything.
> (Actually it never was in Italy - they have dozens of 'phone companies there,
> though most are very small and local).
Uhm. The Only Phone Company here is SIP (aaargh). No Other Phone
Companies.
> So can you use a Trailblazer in Europe? Depends on which country you are
> in. I think they are legal here now (UK), they aren't in Germany, and I
> doubt anyone cares in Italy.
Well, in a big city like Rome usually you wait for 1 year to get
your own phone (at home). SIP is working quite hard right now, i
understand they are trying their best, but i think for too much time
they sat looking around and talking of the future..
> In most of Europe, we haven't even noticed the existance of
> Eucon. As far as I know it is an Italian problem, though because traffic
> to America etc. goes via other European backbone sites, they are involved too.
Eucon is a recent thing. But if you talk about Italy, use < Sublink >.
> I do think it's sad if a (very small) group of European
> sites do this, though, as it causes confusion all round. It would be better
> if they would make their own links into the Eunet too, and pay their share -
> I'm sure they could find a more reasonable feed if they tried, even if
> perhaps not in Italy.
HEY I TRIED THAT. I CALLED UNIDO ASKING FOR AN ACCESS. AND MCVAX
SAID THAT UNTIL I2UNIX SAYS "OK" WE ARE LOCKED TO THE ITALIAN
BACKBONE.
> our Italian friend uses an account (blue) at altger (a German site on the
> EUnet), so presumably he cannot find an Italian public access site.
SUBLINK offers public access sites for free. No other public
accesses are available in italy. And i tell you, there's a *lot of
people which really enjoyed getting a Usenet address.
> Perhaps what he should really do is set one up, and get enough users
> to spread those high connection charges, rather than try and start a
> new net, bringing confusion to both Europe and America.
NO. Until we'll get a subscription to i2unix WITHOUT paying those
RIDICOLOUS yearly 6000+$ we won't EVER register EUnet. Do you
realize that - aside the subscription - one has to pay for:
1) it's own transmission costs. And calling i2unix is a LONG
distance call. And at 2400 like that, getting news costs too much.
2) it's mail trafic (0.25$ for 1024 bytes).
This kind of costs is fine for big companies or for winners
B.F.B.P.A. As i2unix declared: " We are not interested in supporting
small sites ". That's it. SUBLINK is made of small sites, and as
soon as we reach the needed number, we'll start asking for our own
domain, you bet it.
--
Paolo Ventafridda Via Ottoboni 6,20148 Milano - Italy Tel.+392-4032432
EUnet:blue@altger EUcon:venta@i2ack BANG:{pyramid,altger,tmpmbx}!i2ack!venta
SUBLINK Maps & Network management , Italy \/ "Please don't shoot the Operator"
From: mike@krondor.UUCP (Mike Hoffmann)
Subject: Re: An apology, and a question (about uucp in Germany)
Message-ID: <1631@krondor.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 89 20:16:34 GMT
In article <786@redsox.bsw.com> campbell@redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes:
>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.
There is absolutly NO need to appologize, I know him personally, and
he is an idiot. What he did went beyond normal human ignorance or even
stupidity. (I hope he reads this, but I might have some additional
words for him, when I next see him)
>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
I am german. :-) Looks like I'm in a flaming mood. :-) So here goes:
>in Germany that makes getting a news feed so unbelievably expensive? I am
>I really don't understand this. Who do you have to pay the $200 to?
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.
>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).
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
be an Internet-backbone. Tight budget calculation showed, that with
present unido prices, we would go much less expensive by paying the
plane, but direct trans-atlantic 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!!
You exactly got the point... :-( *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.
I post this, though I don't really expect it to go out. So I will
mail it as well.
I think I accumulated enough new enemies for now!
Cheers
Mike
--
Mike Hoffmann ! It's difficult to soar with Eagles
Fasangartenstr. 102 ! When you have to work with Turkeys
D-8000 Munich 90 !
089/6801110 ! UUCP :...!boulder!gopnbg!chiuur!krondor!mike
From: dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright)
Subject: Re: An apology, and a question (about uucp in Germany)
Message-ID: <1550@stl.stc.co.uk>
Date: 24 Jun 89 09:41:27 GMT
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
--
Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.ukdww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (01/16/91)
In the referenced article jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) writes:
#BT do indeed pay UKC around 20K p.a. This is for several news feeds
#plus a *lot* of mail. [Nobody pays "20K per year for a full news
#feed".] Unlike some other sites, BT is a good net citizen.
#
#I doubt if there is anyone else that pays UKC anything like that
#amount of money for news and mail. STC might be nearest, but I'd guess
#their bill is around 3-4,000 quid.
The bill for STC Technology (STL) alone must be at least that (I forget the
exact figures but anyway they'd be confidential). WE get/send a *LOT* of
mail. Then there's STC Telecomms, and then there are several ICL sites,
most of whom get their news and some their mail via us, but are all
independently registered, as indeed they should be. So STC as it was back
in October probably paid even more than BT. (For those who don't know what
changed in November - ICL was sold to Fujitsu). However when you consider
that we pay vastly larger sums to BT and Mercury for 'phone and data comms
just within the UK the fees from UKC start to look very reasonable.
Of course the account is different for smaller users. But even for them BT's
comms charges are likely to exceed UKC's if they take a full news feed and
are more than a local call away from a feed, (a full local-call feed by
Trailblazer costs some $500 pa in 'phone charges - local calls aren't free
in the UK - and long distance calls or PSS can put that up to over $5000 pa).
Thinking about this reminds me of the days when one of the main mail links
US---UK was the 1200 baud modem at the back of our UNIX 4.1 VAX780 with
which we used to call ittvax. The link wasn't supposed to be for anyone
else, as it cost STL expensive phone calls, but people we were working with
were allowed to use it. We seemed to have a lot of friends in those days :-)
Like ittvax (and soon our 780) those days are gone. Now we need a reliable
mail and news system which won't disappear if some generous sponsor is hit
by budget cuts - which for commercial sites means a service we pay for.
Regards, "None shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity"
David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK
dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWW
<or> /g=David/s=Wright/org=STC Technology Ltd/prmd=STC plc/admd=Gold 400/co=GBpcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (01/18/91)
On 16 Jan 91 20:43:26 GMT, ntitley@axion.bt.co.uk (Nigel Titley) said: ntitley> I do not have, and never have had cause to complain at UKCs ntitley> charging. I feel that it is cheap at the price. BT may afford to feel that it is cheap. Oh yes. I am still perplexed that for some reason the UKC overheads are over ten times *their* communication costs. Explanation: some say that UKC's yearly budget is over #250,000; the cost of fetching News (say something between 500MB-1GB per year depending on what you want to include) from UUNET by TrailBlazer is, depending on compression and other factors, well under #10-20,000 (approx. 1,000 chars second, depending on compression 250-500MB per year transferred, about 7,000 minutes on the phone per year at worst); it would quite a bit cheaper if the USA site were calling and then reimbursed for the AT&T bills, because the price per minute from the other side of the Pond is much lower. As to e-mail, I would be exceedingly surprised if e-mail to/from the UK commercial sites (the academic ones use the subsidized Internet gateway) reached a volume comparable to that of News; while we are discussing the News here, the #250,000 mentioned above include mail. Now I am prepared to believe that mail has greater fixed costs than News, but it probably has much smaller communication costs, because of possibly lower volume. I'd like to see the traffic statistics and the budgets of UKC vs. those of uk.ac.nsfnet-relay and UUNET; I surmise that it would be instructive. Note that the cost of getting News from the USA is *shared* with every other country in Europe, so that probably the #10,000-20,000 above have to be scaled significantly. All in all I think that the transmission costs of UKC are well under #20,000 (if not, they are insane). Their total budget is ten times that, at least. Uhmmm. Uhmmmmm. Do they provide a value added News "service", apart from being a pipe between UUNET and the first echelon of News sites in the UK? Not that I am aware of. They are just a conduit with an overhead of the order of 1000% overhead. Impressive. Back to the BT situation: they get their News feed from UKC and it is redistributed, out of their good will, to 22 sites, each of whom pays UKC (not BT!) their #600 per annum standing charge for News. If BT got the feed direct from UUNET, instead of via mcsun and ukc, or even from one of the several sites in the USA that would be happy to feed direct an European site (I have received some generous offers), they would be spending the same or less money, and they would be able to redistribute News for *free* to other sites in this country, or to charge much less than UKC and still recover their money. Now you say: but hidden here are the costs BT bears to redistribute News internally and externally, like support staff time and machine resources. Yes, but BT evidently are prepared to bear those costs for their own use of News, and probably passing it on may be a bother but probably just a little extra. USENET spirit! "I carry your traffic, you carry my traffic", and some are more generous than others. UKC make the overheads explicit, by having the rest of the UK pay for their support staff and machine resources, and fairly lavish ones at that (some largish CS departments would love to be able to afford three full time support people PLUS clerical staff for running their *dozens* of workstations and servers!). -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk
pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (01/21/91)
On 18 Jan 91 15:28:45 GMT, pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) said: pcg> [ ... ] UKC overheads are over ten times *their* communication pcg> costs. pcg> Explanation: some say that UKC's yearly budget is over #250,000; pcg> the cost of fetching News [ ... ] well under #10-20,000 [ ... ] Rereading the approximate, unofficial, hypothetical breakdown of UKC's budget, I have noticed that perhaps #100,000 of the #250,000 are (mostly) X.25 communication costs that should not be counted, because they are really (presumably) those of where UKC polls a subscriber instead of being polled, so the bill falls onto UKC instead of the subscriber. So, I would say: the cost of fetching News cannot be more than #10-20,000 per year; the UKC overheads are over #150,000; these also include the overheads for Mail, not just News, but I doubt that they amount to a lot, even if Mail gatewaying is quite a bit more of an effort than News forwarding. The picture is fuzzy, and News overheads are probably more like over five (rather than ten) times News communications costs, but this still seems to be rather expensive; except to well heeled large organizations, that is. -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk
pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (01/22/91)
I think that for fairness this should be circulated also in uk.misc, where the discussion originated. This is a verbatim reproduction: From venta@otello.sublink.org Mon Jan 21 18:46:32 1991 From: venta@otello.sublink.org (Paolo Ventafridda) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains,comp.mail.uucp Subject: UKC and mail prices: DISCLAIMER- README Date: 16 Jan 91 12:13:50 GMT Organization: Consorzio Telematix, Milano - Italy PLEASE, anyone willing to quote, report, reply to Piercarlo's articles, should read this and possibly report it as well. I've been mentioned inside an article without knowing, so THIS is my disclaimer. (sorry guys) In article <PCG.91Jan14204408@odin.cs.aber.ac.uk>, pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: > Some people have expressed skepticism. Well, here is a digest of an > exchange of one year agho on the subject. I have not deleted or mended > any part of the text, just reflown it here and there to enhance > readability. I understand that the situation has improved a very little > bit in the meantime. [.....etc.....] Articles included (at least mine) are exactly 2 years old, not just one. The situation has changed many times since then, not always getting better. 1- I *no *longer want to be involved in discussions about the monopoly of eunet or whatever european network. Please let me OUT of these public discussions, they don't lead to anything. I am not willing to be pointed at like the pioneer of any kind of 'revolution'. All i can say is that at that time i was younger and stupid enough to start such a debate. I wouldn't do it again anyway. 2- I had enough troubles and already paid for what i consider stupid youth's mistakes. Again, let me out of this discussion. 3- Finally, please do not cope my name with Sublink Network. Sublink is now a real organization, i'm just a host, i'm not president, chairman or whatever. Sublink officially exists since september 1989; those articles are dated january 89. That sublink is *very different from the one i'm on now. 4- I can't speak for sublink now, and those articles of mine can't speak for the 'official' sublink as well. Sincerely, Paolo Ventafridda -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk