Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!ngse18 From: ngse18@castle.ed.ac.uk (J R Evans) Newsgroups: uk.misc,comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: UKC and mail prices Message-ID: <7802@castle.ed.ac.uk> Date: 14 Jan 91 08:35:05 GMT References: <1991Jan7.204116.7978@cns.umist.ac.uk> <1991Jan8.180645.2690@robobar.co.uk> <3918@stl.stc.co.uk> Organization: Edinburgh University Computer Services Lines: 29 dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) posted a useful summary of ukc's current charges; allow me to cross a few t's which might otherwise lead to misunderstanding ... >Sites can take news or mail or both. But if they take news, they must still pay the standing charge for UKnet registration. Net minimum cost for news alone is #580 per annum, to an academic site not covered by the block grant. > As has been said elsewhere, most >academic sites have the service 'free' because its covered by a block grant; >the figures above apply to those not covered. Replace 'most' by 'some'. I don't have the ukc figures in front of me, but I recall that about half of current academic subscribers are covered by the block grant. There is a lot of the academic and research community without ukc mail or news. It seems a reasonable assumption that any site would register for mail, at least, if this were free of cost to them, so it is unlikely that many unregistered sites are covered by the block grant. I don't know whether the cost of news to eligible sites is covered by the block grant - I'm under the impression even they must pay extra. Can anyone enlighten us? The source of my information is ukc's current information pack - I'm trying to get a feed set up to my home site. Russ Evans BGS Edinburgh