Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!mica.berkeley.edu!wisner From: wisner@mica.Berkeley.EDU (Bill Wisner) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: mail and news in Europe Message-ID: <29859@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 28 Jun 89 04:40:00 GMT References: <786@redsox.bsw.com> <928@sering.cwi.nl> <573@axis.fr> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: Amnesia International Lines: 38 In article <573@axis.fr> philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) writes: >> Who administers the top-level domains in Europe? If they are maintained by >> EUnet/EUUG, do only EUUG members get to join those domains? Or, to be more >> succinct, if a company in Outer Boondocks, West Germany polls the US to get >> its own mail, will it be allowed to become company.de? >Only EUUG members may join EUnet. >EUnet was set up by, and is run for the benefit of EUUG members. My question said nothing about joining EUnet. I asked if sites that are NOT members of EUnet are allowed to enter the Internet domains that EUnet manages. I refer specifically to the top-level domains for European countries, such as .DE for Germany. If EUnet does not allow such sites to join such domains, it is evil, rude, and very wrong. You can call a non-EUnet site foobar.de without requiring mail for that site to pass through EUnet gateways! Many people do not seem to realize this. A trivial addition to the .de zone would allow it. This would not hurt EUnet at all (in fact, it would bolster their image) and it would definitely help make international mail just a little bit easier. >Tell me how the telecoms system knows the difference between bits transfered >via UUCP and those transfered by NNTP ? NNTP is a protocol used to transfer USENET over Internet links. I can't be sure but it seems likely to me that the transatlantic Internet lines are leased, which means that there is a fixed cost to maintain it, not a per- packet fee. If those lines have a fixed cost, it won't cost any more money to send USENET articles down the pipe. Please, no bitching from the UK contingent; I know quite well why NNTP to JANET won't work. And incidentally, I do agree with the European who opined that care must be taken to avoid clogging those transatlantic wires with USENET traffic. w