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From: robert@fear.UUCP (Robert Plamondon)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Cutting sites for backbone sites
Message-ID: <311@fear.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Dec-85 13:05:28 EST
Article-I.D.: fear.311
Posted: Fri Dec 13 13:05:28 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 05:23:39 EST
References: <1882@watdcsu.UUCP> <856@vortex.UUCP> <1960@watdcsu.UUCP>
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 23
Summary: Have non-backbone sites poll for news

This has been mentioned before, but as far as I can tell it got
little attention.

Backbone sites can cut their phone bills caused by sending news to
non-backbone sites to zero by requiring the non-backbone sites to
poll for news.  This way, the *recipient* pays, not the intermediate
site.  Since the recipient is (in theory) the one who benefits from
news, he should be the one who pays.

With this system, the backbone sites only pay for their connections
to other backbone sites (and overhead, of course).  Backbone sites
can share costs among themselves on the basis of "I poll on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays, and you poll on the other days," or "I poll
for these groups, and  you send the rest."

This argument is orthogonal to the arguments about which groups are
trash and which are useful, and probably has less emotional content
(i.e., flame appeal) for that reason.  But it's workable, isn't it?
-- 

		Robert Plamondon
		UUCP: {turtlevax, resonex, cae780}!weitek!robert
		FidoNet: 10/624 robert plamondon