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From: dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright)
Newsgroups: uk.misc,comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: UKC and mail prices
Message-ID: <3938@stl.stc.co.uk>
Date: 15 Jan 91 22:46:52 GMT
References: <PCG.91Jan6145604@teachk.cs.aber.ac.uk> <PCG.91Jan12194157@teachk.cs.aber.ac.uk> <1948@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> <JIM.91Jan14174843@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk>
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In the referenced article jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) writes:
#BT do indeed pay UKC around 20K p.a. This is for several news feeds
#plus a *lot* of mail. [Nobody pays "20K per year for a full news
#feed".] Unlike some other sites, BT is a good net citizen.
#
#I doubt if there is anyone else that pays UKC anything like that
#amount of money for news and mail. STC might be nearest, but I'd guess
#their bill is around 3-4,000 quid.

The bill for STC Technology (STL) alone must be at least that (I forget the
exact figures but anyway they'd be confidential).   WE get/send a *LOT* of
mail.   Then there's STC Telecomms, and then there are several ICL sites,
most of whom get their news and some their mail via us, but are all
independently registered, as indeed they should be.  So STC as it was back
in October probably paid even more than BT.  (For those who don't know what
changed in November - ICL was sold to Fujitsu).   However when you consider
that we pay vastly larger sums to BT and Mercury for 'phone and data comms
just within the UK the fees from UKC start to look very reasonable.

Of course the account is different for smaller users.  But even for them BT's
comms charges are likely to exceed UKC's if they take a full news feed and
are more than a local call away from a feed,  (a full local-call feed by
Trailblazer costs some $500 pa in 'phone charges - local calls aren't free
in the UK - and long distance calls or PSS can put that up to over $5000 pa).

Thinking about this reminds me of the days when one of the main mail links
US---UK was the 1200 baud modem at the back of our UNIX 4.1 VAX780 with
which we used to call ittvax.  The link wasn't supposed to be for anyone
else, as it cost STL expensive phone calls, but people we were working with
were allowed to use it.   We seemed to have a lot of friends in those days :-)

Like ittvax (and soon our 780) those days are gone.  Now we need a reliable
mail and news system which won't disappear if some generous sponsor is hit
by budget cuts - which for commercial sites means a service we pay for.

Regards,          "None shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity"
        David Wright             STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex  CM17 9NA, UK
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