Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!iuvax!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies
From: gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: internet
Message-ID: <70400089@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 21 Oct 90 20:31:00 GMT
References: <5164@crash.cts.com>
Lines: 22
Nf-ID: #R:crash.cts.com:5164:m.cs.uiuc.edu:70400089:000:1193
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!gillies    Oct 21 15:31:00 1990


> I am confused by your story - were you going to be connecting to their
> system via telephone?  Were you going to pay for the phone bill?

What is the cost of sending this message over the internet?  Assume
all computers have 9600 baud (1000 chars/second) modems, and that this
message is 1000 characters.  Then it costs 1 second of dialup time to
transmit this message (subtracting some time for compression; adding
some back for control information).  But there are over 7 THOUSAND
computers on the internet; the total cost could be as high as 7000
seconds of long-distance telephone time, which is approx. 100 minutes,
or as much as $15 borne, in part, by everyone on the internet.

Many of the computers are connected by dedicated lines in the DARPA
internet, but these lines can cost even more money.  Unless you were
willing to forward their newsfeed to a remote computer, thereby reducing
*their* long distance phone bill, why should they waste their own CPU
cycles to subsidize your local BBS for nothing?

Don W. Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies