Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!ames!attctc!wnp
From: wnp@attctc.DALLAS.TX.US (Wolf Paul)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: EUNet, unido and USENET
Keywords: still LONG
Message-ID: <8594@attctc.DALLAS.TX.US>
Date: 9 Jul 89 13:14:50 GMT
References: <588@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> <882@corpane.UUCP>
Reply-To: wnp@attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Wolf Paul)
Organization: The Unix(R) Connection BBS, Dallas, Tx
Lines: 58

In a couple of articles, sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:

>If there are places such as this one in Italy and the other one someone told us
>about in the Netherlands that are receiving news from USA through a different
>route than EUUG does, then why don't others ask if they could feed off of them
>rather than off of unido? Surely a call to Italy would be cheaper than a call
>to the USA. 
>
>Or even better, why doesn't EUUG feed off of those sites? It would be much
>cheaper than paying for transatlantic phone calls, eh?

Because those who run EUnet feel that such feeds are too tentative and not
sufficiently reliably -- they can be cut off at the whim of management. And
because there are only a small number of such feeds, if this does indeed happen,
there is not enough redundancy to prevent the network from collapsing.

EUnet is dominated by Universities and Businesses, and to them this reliability
issue is more important than the cost. To the small, private, hobbyist site,
cost is more important than potential reliability problems. Ne'er the twain
shall meet, at least until the recent decision by "unido" to permit small sites
to obtain a "joint" feed and split the cost.

>You know this doesn't make much sense to me.  unido says that they won't pass
>mail to someone who is getting their newsfeed from the USA. 

I believe that means they won't pass mail to someone who does not subscribe
to their mail service -- regardless of where they get their news.

>WHY  NOT????
>
>If site A is connected to ddsw1, then all US mail will go to ddsw1, unido is
>not even involved in this case. 
>
>If site A wants to mail to someone connected to unido, then the person on unido
>who is the recipient will have to pay the delivery charge. This is the same as
>if someone in the USA sent mail to someone on unido. Why does unido want to
>blacklist them in this case?
>
>If someone on unido wants to mail to site A, then the person sending the mail
>will have to pay the normal charges to unido just as if he wanted to  send
>mail over to the USA. Why does unido have a problem with this?????

Because in unido's view, if these people routed their mail through unido in the
first place, and paid for it, there would be a greater number of people to
spread the overhead to, and the entire game would be cheaper for everyone.

The problem with this is, that unless you have a sudden influx of new sites
subscribing to unido all at once, and rates going down correspondingly, many
of the private sites in Europe CANNOT AFFORD to join EUnet in hopes that someday
their participation will result in lower rates. And aren't even inclined to as
long as there is the suspicion (and confirmation of sort in recent postings
by various unido admins) that unido is using part of the money for non-EUnet
costs, and is thus charging them more than they should).
-- 
Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101
UUCP:   {texbell, attctc, dalsqnt}!dcs!wnp
DOMAIN: wnp@attctc.dallas.tx.us or wnp%dcs@texbell.swbt.com
        NOTICE: As of July 3, 1989, "killer" has become "attctc".