Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!bionet!agate!darkstar!ssyx.ucsc.edu!ulmo From: ulmo@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Brad Allen) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: mail and news in Europe Message-ID: <288@darkstar.ucsc.edu> Date: 29 Jun 89 11:54:41 GMT References: <786@redsox.bsw.com> <928@sering.cwi.nl> <573@axis.fr> Sender: usenet@darkstar.ucsc.edu Organization: no affiliation with UCSC Lines: 36 In article <573@axis.fr> philip@axis.fr (Philip Peake) writes: > > Internet, will NNTP help bring down the costs of getting news into Europe? > Tell me how the telecoms system knows the difference between bits transfered > via UUCP and those transfered by NNTP ? Ahh, this answers my same question too! In North America, the Internet connections have almost always been dedicated links, often satellites, often terrestial leased lines. I guess the diversity of carriers in USA makes things significantly easier. Right now most Internet traffic goes over the NSFNET, which to my surprise is a whole bunch of dynamically linked T1's via MCI communications! I would have never thought that MCI, a phone company, would be involved with this. After 20 years of ARPAnet connections, I think we just forget or don't realize that for whomever pays the bills, many of them down the line are paid to various phone companies and such: the links have always been there (for longer than I've been alive anyway), and certainly they are not going to disappear overnight. For us, Internet use is free ... I think someone, yeah, well, the taxpayers, which logically is me and a whole bunch of other people -- they pay for it ... I don't! Well, not directly. Hey, what's wrong with all you European countries, that you don't have humungus deficits of a coupla terrabucks, so you can do this networking stuff for free? God are you technologically behind!!! (Yesterday I called BARRNET, he said $12000/yr corp, $4000/yr nonprofit; $20000@56kbit or $26500@T1 install. He estimated for me that paying to the phone company for a line would be something like $500-600/month for me. Gee! Money's involved! I hadn't thought of that.)