Xref: utzoo comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains:557 comp.mail.uucp:5691 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!otello!venta From: venta@otello.sublink.org (Paolo Ventafridda) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains,comp.mail.uucp,sublink.usenet Subject: Re: UKC and mail prices Summary: sublink, non-eunet sites in europe Message-ID: <1146@otello.sublink.org> Date: 1 Jan 91 19:35:17 GMT References: <1533@tharr.UUCP> <1990Dec23.222645.13580@trevan.uucp> Organization: Consorzio Telematix, Milano - Italy Lines: 142 In article , pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: > > A) It is possible to register non USA based Internet domains as though > they were USA based. Several Canadian sites are registered under both > 'ca' and 'edu'; some UK sites are registered under 'com'. Many European > sites are registered under 'sublink.org'. Hello Peter (ciao) and everybody, since you quote sublink, i think i need to point out the situation, being currently the network coordinator. Disclaimer: what i say may or may not be the opinion of the official management of sublink, which is a lawfully organization in Italy. I'm just the net coord., not the president or whatever. 'sublink.org' is just an italian organization. I think Peter Grandi was referring to the bigger .sub.org in west germany, or may be both of the .sub*.org things. > > B) The EUnet and the UKnet backbone (and most national backbones) will > boyocott traffic between one of their customers and another of their > customers, if the ultimate source/destination is not a customer _and_ is > running the UUCP protocols _and_ is located in Europe. Note that, even > if they they try to claim that billing is the ostensible reason, this is > not because of money problems -- all traffic between two customers of > the UKnet/EUnet must be paid for by the originating site. The boycott is > done _purely_ to make it impossible operating a EUnet/UKnet <-> SUBlink > gateway, even if the gateway site is prepared to pay for all the costs > of the EUnet leg of the traffic, to deny SUBlink sites a larger > connectivity. > > Note: the boycott applies *only* to traffic with "competing" > European UUCP networks -- the EUnet/UKnet do not boycott UUCP > traffic outside Europe (USENET), or non UUCP traffic within Europe > (EARN), even if the other party is not a EUnet/UKnet customer (in > which case the party which is a customer has to pay for both the > mail it sends and that which it receives). Thus the absurdity that > UUCP traffic between an European SUBlink site and an European > EUnet/UKnet site *must* be routed via a gateway in another continent, > usually some USENET site, because direct gatewaying between the > two European UUCP networks is not allowed by EUnet/UKnet. Well, really EUnet has the rights to 'boycott' our trafic also being registered under a .org domain and linking to the US like we do. This is an old story, two years ago my youth made me think this was somehow illegal. Maybe this is un-ethical from the Usenet's point of view, but it's perfectly legal. EUnet has the rights to do whatever they want, since it's not Usenet which is paying for the ld calls or the internet trafic. They put the money in it, so it's really their business. I'm not going to argue about this anymore. Discussions on this matter do not bring to anything; as i said, it's something i've been learning on my own skin 2 years ago. > > C) So, the EUnet/UKnet backbone are not user groups in any way and will > boycott any direct gateway to any other European UUCP network, thus > denying sites on both networks better connectivity. They provide a > commercial style service to their private customers, and the boycott is > narrowly targeted only against what they perceive as potential suppliers > of the same service (European UUCP mail and news forwarding). Therefore > they are in a very different position from the USENET traditional UUCP > volunteer sites that are regional backbones and UUCP map collection > points. > EUnet provides professional services, on a professional base, it's not something based on volunteers, though a lot of good volunteers help Eunet. I can't speak for other countries, but in Italy i2u is offering real time connection to the internet and of course UUCP links to Eunet very seriously, and you pay for this quality. Now,quoting.. > jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) writes: > > jim> False. There's nothing stopping you or anyone else from arranging > jim> your own transatlantic links and paying for the calls yourself. If > jim> you honestly think you can get a better, cheaper service by doing > jim> it all yourself, then go ahead. I think you'll soon find that the > jim> reality is somewhat different. For us, it's not a matter of getting a better service of what eunet can offer. It' s just the price of the service which creates some problems. For instance, i don't care about real-time and i would poll eunet's backbone once a day. That's what i can afford, since the backbone is also a long distance call within italy. Since more than a year ago we started polling US by ourselves. Who are we? Companies, students, single guys who are not willing (or can't) spend too much. We didn't do it better than EUnet, it's different. I would say it's just a less expensive networking, on both i2unix and sublink you get what you pay for. Reality is of course *very different from what one might expect: costs for italy-US transmissions are very high. We have a very low budget (less than 20.000 $ a year), it's not easy to survive, but we do. Our fees are of course *very low.In 1989,1990 fees were ranging from ~40$ to ~250$ a year. That's because the US link is just a part of what we do: basically we are trying to connect italy in a very similar way of USENET in US, i.e. with regional backbones, fast links with telebit modems etc. What is the most difficult part of the work? Costs sharing! That's a real pain. We could link to the german .sub.org and avoid calling direct US, but we should do cost-sharing with them also, and the link with w.germany from italy is costing too. So each one calls US (dunno much about the .sub.org right now). I guess that for EUnet it's a matter of preserving their "cost-sharing" too, and i understand that. By the time being, we just live and prosper. We let eunet mail (also coming from UK) enter sublink, and please note that we *do *pay for it! I.e.: if a eunet's user sends mail to us, WE do pay for his mail! What else can we do? Cut the mail or send it back like eunet used to do ? We would pay for that mail twice, it's not a good idea. Furthermore, eunet's users (at least some of them) are willing to communicate with us, and they are welcome. It would be far much worst if we could not send to eunet; but we can do it (apparently), so i don't see problems. I hope this message won't start blacklisting back. Conclusions: setting up an independent uucp network in europe and make it talk to the US is very hard, but can be done. It would be much,much, much more better if eunet's fees would consider 'low cost' sites, i.e. sites paying for their own trafic at a reasonable cost, without those high yearly fees.. How, i don't know. It's not easy. I hope that the InterEUnet tcp/ip network will cut down fees, at least in italy. So that in a future may be it will be possibile to discuss a 'special' subscription for our members paying for a 'forfait' fee. It's just so stupid that a mail being sent from the university of milano, which stands 5Km from me, goes through US and then comes here with tons of headers. > > -- > Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk > Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg > Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk Happy 91, -- Paolo Ventafridda -*- INTERNET: venta@otello.sublink.org TELEMATIX MILANO - Via C.Gomes 10, 20124 Milano - +39-2-6706012