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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!csun!fedeva!premise!mirror!billc
From: billc@mirror.UUCP (Bill Callahan)
Newsgroups: news.admin,alt.config
Subject: Re: UUCP in Germany
Message-ID: <28148@mirror.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jun 89 14:12:33 GMT
References: <3202@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu>
Reply-To: billc@prism.TMC.COM (Bill Callahan)
Organization: Mirror Systems, Cambridge Mass.
Lines: 33

In article <3202@wheat-chex.ai.mit.edu> tmb@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Thomas M. Breuel) writes:
-o The idea of a central backbone (unido) charging for all of a country's
-  USENET traffic seems wrong. The costs that unido has for pulling articles
-  over the Atlantic should be redistributed equally among its immediate
-  neighbors in Germany. Each neighbor could then decide to let other
-  hosts connect to them and redistribute their costs further.
-  Central network administration (just like central economic planning)
-  always seems like a good idea at first but from all the examples I
-  have seen always fails miserably.

	I agree with this point (as well as many of the other ones) quite
	wholeheartedly.  I understand that unido has costs from getting a
	U.S. newsfeed which need to be redistributed, but it seems that they
	have chosen one redistribution scheme which they choose to maintain
	and enforce, when the possibility exists that another would be
	superior.  The one that Mr. Breuel suggests (having unido only
	charge its immediate neighbors) seems to have a lot of advantages.
	One of them is that it takes the burden of enforcement off the
	shoulders of unido.  All they have to do is make sure that the sites
	they supply directly pay for the service.  If a site fails to pay
	up, they can cut the feed directly.  None of this "blacklisting."

	I am aware that the immediate neighbors would have to pay a steep
	connect fee, but they can defray the cost by charging connect fees
	to *their* downstream neighbors.  A well connected secondary site
	could wind up gettting news for *free*, which is fair, since it's
	providing a service.  A little leaf site way downstream may get
	articles several days late, be probably would have to pay very
	little for the connection, plus local calling costs, of course.

	Ultimately, I think a system like this could lead to fairer cost
	distribution, higher connectivity, and a much simpler (i.e., market
	oriented) administration.