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From: pda@Dixie.Com (Paul D. Anderson)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: New rules for UUPSI (and connectivity)
Message-ID: <7726@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>
Date: 7 Mar 91 05:44:30 GMT
References: <1991Mar04.221119.5075@utoday.com>   <1991Mar05.190548.22965@ariel.unm.edu> <1991Mar5.203714.26335@uu.psi.com> <39895@cup.portal.com>
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Dixie Communications Services
Lines: 140

AMillar@cup.portal.com (Alan DI Millar) writes:

>So far all I've heard is people reporting that
>PSI will not allow you to relay mail from/to anyone else, making you
>strictly a leaf.
>- Alan Millar   AMillar@cup.portal.com

Let me 'splain what I've noticed here in Atlanta.  

I run a Public Access Unix system here, delivering
mail/news/source archives.  I'm not making a cent on it.  You
have to charge UUNET rates to make money.  My  rates allow me to
cover equipment failures and phone costs, but that's it.      

But you wouldn't believe the attitude that my (unix news)
friends have toward the business aspect of a 'commercial' news
site.  Some days it feels that they are almost hostile.  I
garuantee a certain level of service (eg: no busy signals,
enough spool space, long expire intervals) that few other sites in
atlanta do.  The system is almost continuously monitored. 

But these folks are what you'd expect from hobbyists:  they
won't spend an additional dime if they can get it for free. I
even tell them to share a newsfeed cost from our site with their
friends and they won't do it.  How much are we talking about? 
Full feed: $30/month.  (It is half the cost for a partial feed.)
Collect 5 to 10 bucks from each downstream site and split it
around.  But they won't hear of it. They would rather have the
hassle of running multiple feeds in from different sites who
each give them a 'free' partial feed.  What a mess.  I wish
someone like me had been around when I first had had to first
set up news and needed someone to tell me how it worked. 

I have been telling folks that the net (as we know it) is gonna
dissapear, that local hobbyists will have to pick up the tab for
long distance, that the free ride party is about to be over. 
The FIDOnet folks have known this for years, and they have a
rate structure to handle it. Usenetters here just glaze over and
won't hear what is being said.  It's scary. The only folks that
pay attention are the ones that have been into it since before
1980, cause they've seen the net evolve a few times.    

Here at Dixie, we sell "service".  We serve as a  transport for
local sites that can't handle the volume of redistributing a
full news feed.  I also archive as much stuff as I can get my
hands on, again for sites that don't have much disk.  I collect
as many current "where to find it" listings as I can, for sites
that don't have the time.  What sets us apart is service.  Hell,
anyone can run news.  But can you do it well?  I do.  I've
hacked news code until I was blue in the face to get it to run
well.  I had a site uptime of 99.6% last year (dead serious,
I kept a log of hours).  But there are many sites that are down
hours per day. So what people come to expect from us is
"Quality".    

I don't sell data (that I didn't originate).  I will ship 
most any source I have on the system via mail to anyone that
requests it.  I encourage my users to give it away and help 
their friends.  I want them to set up uucp connections to help
with that transfer.  Why?  Because by doing this I will become
known as  a provider of quality service. And that will cause
others  to want to have direct access to the services this site
provides. 

I don't restrict mail flowing thru my site, even when it has
been generated by non-paying customers.  There are several 
reasons:  PR is high, volume is moderate, fast delivery sets the
standard as this being a quality machine.  It sets a standard
that others will want to use, and will come to purchase as  a
direct service in the future.  If I find someone is abusing the
service by routing too much mail through our long distance
connections,  then I call them on the phone and ask them to
subscribe or  reroute.  I explain that it's costing me money,
and most of the time I receive a favorable response.  In two
years, I've never had a serious problem. 

To say that PSI will not accept mail and news from folks that
aren't subscribers is to seriously reduce the effectiveness of
PSInet.  Plus PSI will seriously have to special-case its
software to reject mail from sites that are not in the To:/From:
field of any message.  Finally, what PSI proposes, if
implemented in SW, to reject news articles from folks that  are
not on PSI's net, will be damn near impossible to implement
effectively and continue to provide a good level of news flow to
PSI's subscribers. Implementing it contractually may be (more
likely) possible, but the first time PSI has to take someone to
court over feeding "non-contractual" traffic onto the net, PSI
might as well kiss its collective self goodbye, as many sites
will drop their connection within a week of any such occurrence.

(As a postscript while re-reading this, I had the following
idea: What's to keep me from getting a newsfeed from you,
re-distributing it, then taking the downstream followups and
feeding it back to UUNET, for them to redistribute.  PSI has a
serious problem in this case. I've completely stayed within the
contract of what you propose, yet I've completely stepped around
the fact that you want to develop a lot of sites in major
cities. ) 

What you are facing is the same problem that AT&T faces with
overseas networks.  How do you bill for interconnection?  Who
benefits the most?  Does AT&T bill Europe for the service it
provides Europe?  Or does Europe bill AT&T for the service it
provides America.  The answer is (I hate to say this) "simple".
You don't bill for major node interconnection.  Primarily
because both networks will benefit from an increased user base. 
Since a longtime friend on network AT&T will now be able to talk
to longtime friend on network "Europe", and they will
reciprocate in who call's whom, then both networks will benefit
from the source of additional revenue.  

How do I, as a user, choose PSInet or ALTERnet?  By whoever
gets me to the BIGGEST set of users and offers the best rate,
etc.  (By the by, last I looked, ALTERnet does not restrict
redistribution.  Putting a link in to PSI vs putting a link in
for ALTERnet does not cost me enough more where it will be a
stumbling block.)  

It would benefit PSI, as well, to connect to other sites that 
provide a huge number of users.  Why?  Because it will directly
benefit your other users on PSInet, as the user base will be
larger. 

If PSI's rate structure does not support this, then maybe the
ALTERnet network can.  Competition will, ultimately, force 
multiple rate structures, multiple levels of service and unusual
strategic alliances. 

You know: seems that PSI would want redistribution centers for
news locally managed in major cities.  It would reduce the load
on PSI's network by generating the data for each newsfeed site
locally to that city.  But you don't get something for nothing. 
There has to be a value add component for the site in that city.
Too, redistribution centers would help position PSI as a long
term growth company since PSI will not have to deal with  an
explosive growth problem. 

-paul
-- 
* Paul Anderson * Dixie Communications * (404) 578-9547 * pda@dixie.com *