Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!dww From: dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) Newsgroups: uk.misc,comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: UKC and mail prices Message-ID: <3918@stl.stc.co.uk> Date: 13 Jan 91 17:13:41 GMT References: <1991Jan7.204116.7978@cns.umist.ac.uk> <1991Jan8.180645.2690@robobar.co.uk> Sender: news@stl.stc.co.uk Organization: STC Technology Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK Lines: 67 In the referenced article pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: #igb> We pay ``the right amount''. Our fees to Kent are around 20 grand # #If you really meant *twenty* (instead of *two*, and a spurious zero) #thousand pounds per year, you are insane :-). I'm sure ibg does mean #20,000 - but look at the subject; that's news PLUS mail. Large sites like BT (and STL) usually pay a lot more than small ones because the volume charges for international mail mount up. Most of us have no interest in running our own world-wide mail systems, at a much higher cost (one person-year in industry costs a LOT more than #20k). Locally, we see the best source of cost saving being a direct leased line to (e.g.) UKC so we can join the Internet properly, with higher fixed costs but no volume cost. A private user would not find this so practical :-) If anyone wants to find what ukc's current charge rates are they can simply mail information@ukc.ac.uk with Subject: charges and they'll get a list. [I think we all agree that it would be nice if UKC's most recent accounts were available in the same way!]. Summarising the information - mail costs in 1991 are a standing charge of #220 ($400) per annum for academic sites, #380 ($700) per annum for commercial ones. The volume charge is 3p/KByte (#30/MByte) for mail outside the UK (UK mail is free), plus of course any BT PSS or other charges for the connection (UK PSS charges work out at about #4 per MByte - a Trailblazer is a lot cheaper if you take news too). News costs #360 per annum regardless of volume. Sites can take news or mail or both. 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. The charges apply no matter how a site gets mail/news. In fact sites such as STL that connect directly to UKC all feed a number of other sites in return for the privilege (UKC's volume charging system will recognise what the final site is and bill accordingly - though we do pay extra BT transport costs to handle other people's mail). Piercarlo has said that UKC won't treat a group of enthusiasts as a single site for mail/news purposes. I don't think this is true - I recall a posting last year from UKC saying that they would. But the group would have to organise themselves so they appeared as a single address for mail, news and billing - if UKC had to bill or route things differently for each member then they would be justified in charging for each one too. So if anyone wants to form a club for mail/news why not go ahead and do so, instead of moaning that you can't? You'd have to organise your own mail routing internal to the club of course, but that's what most sites with more than one computer do anyway. Obviously you'll need to contact UKC first to confirm that I'm right about their agreeing, but I'd be very suprised if they won't so long as its not a trick to get cheap connections for commercial organisations and so long as the club has a single email address and a single billing point. After all some of the existing UK public access sites work almost like this and nobody has suggested that they are not allowed. Regards, David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK dww@stl.stc.co.uk ...uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!dww PSI%234237100122::DWW "Do not speak of what men deserve. For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthfull of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of *deserving*, of *earning*, and you will begin to be able to think." Odo, The Prison Letters (U.LeGuin, The Dispossessed)