Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Wed, 1 May 1991 13:25:37 GMT From: "Gregory G. Woodbury" Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Online Services Message-ID: Organization: Wolves Den UNIX Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 324, Message 5 of 10 Lines: 35 John Higdon wrote about using uucp and Usenet to take the place of the "high-cost" online services like GEnie and CI$ (I like that particular visual pun). While many (or even most) local BBSes or Usenet servers are "free", this is not always the case and it may get worse. UUnet and UUpsi and Portal and others are Usenet providers that charge (sometimes quite a bit) for feeding you Usenet and providing uucp connectivity. As of July 1st, add another one to the list. I was just informed by "mcnc" (formerly one of the "backbone cabal" sites) that to continue my uucp/usenet connectivity, it will cost me $200/month! Adding this insult to the recent injury of losing RTI as a newsfeeder in this region has the news readers of the are understandably confused. My site, for one, cannot afford to pay that kind of money for news, and it is unlikely that I will start charging for access (since that would allow GTE to change my computer line to a "business line" which I also cannot afford). The only hope is that I will find some friendly site at a local university (Hi Duke!) which will allow me to get the full feed from them that I currently get from mcnc. Since Duke is part of the MCNC run "CONCERT" subnet of SURAnet, they may not want to allow general public use of the resources that they pay for. If ISDN does get into the home, and "toasternet" ever gets made, it will only come about if some changes are made in the cost recovery algorithms used by the phone companies. Gregory G. Woodbury @ The Wolves Den UNIX, Durham NC UUCP: ...dukcds!wolves!ggw ...mcnc!wolves!ggw [use the maps!] Domain: ggw@cds.duke.edu ggw%wolves@mcnc.mcnc.org