Xref: utzoo news.admin:12792 news.misc:6269 comp.mail.uucp:6115 Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.misc,comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: New rules for UUPSI Message-ID: <-=1ATZ4@xds13.ferranti.com> Date: 17 Mar 91 16:21:36 GMT References: <1991Mar5.141606.1797@uu.psi.com> <1991Mar10.023408.3693@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <1991Mar16.053429.23172@ddsw1.MCS.COM> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 62 In article <1991Mar16.053429.23172@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes: > In article peter@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > >In article <1991Mar10.023408.3693@ddsw1.MCS.COM>, karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) writes: > >> There are others who don't charge at all, under any number of circumstances. > >> All one has to do is ask around. In general if you're able and willing to > >> help out, you don't end up paying anyone other than Ma Bell. > >This might well be a more substantial sum than the $75 per month UUPSI > >charges. > I doubt it. You see, I live in an area where ALL calls are timed (at least > from "business" phones) and all calls are timed if more than 8 miles in > distance, from business OR residential lines! > I pay something like $300 a month to Ma Bell; I can't lay out another $75. Didn't I just say that was a more substantial sum than the $75 per month UUPSI charges? But more to the point, in very many places the call to a UUPSI POP is free or charged on a per-call basis, but the call to a site willing to feed you is long distance. For us (Houston is such an example) UUPSI is a dead win. > >I don't know where you are, but in a lot of places the traditional methods > >give you at best 2-day-old Usenet. Sometimes older than that. > Well, I get nearly-instant Usenet (about 3-4 hours delay, most of the > time). Plenty good enough for me and those who feed from me. Again, you're in a completely different situation. > >For folks in less well connected parts of the U.S., they can. We're talking > >$75 versus hundreds of dollars. > In places where there are no feeds AND a local indial, you have a point. No, even if there are other sites getting Usenet, they may not have the modem time or may otherwise be unwilling to provide a feed. I have a 2400 baud modem on my home system. Even the tiny fraction of the groups I get can tie up someone's modem for hours. The guy I get my mail from (uh.edu) isn't willing to feed me news for that reason, so I get two sub-feeds from different sites. I'm happy to feed a couple of people in turn, but I literally don't have the resources to do more than that. This means *long* delays for the traditional methods... if someone's site is off line for a day, that's a day's delay bubble in the flow. > How many places are like that? Houston is. In fact most of Texas is like that. > PSI can't make any money if there is no use of the indials, and leased lines > aren't cheap. I bet their backbone only goes to heavily populated areas, > which usually have "free" feeds (or lower cost) available... Lower cost, and lower quality. > Copyright 1991 Karl Denninger. Distribution by site(s) which restrict > redistribution of Usenet news PROHIBITED. I don't know of any such sites since Stargate folded. Can you name one? -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"