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From: grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Strange news article path(s)
Message-ID: <230@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-May-86 23:56:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.230
Posted: Sun May 11 23:56:16 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 13-May-86 03:31:35 EDT
References: <526@gould9.UUCP> <829@oliveb.UUCP>
Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins)
Distribution: na
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 34
Keywords: backbone, west coast

In article <829@oliveb.UUCP> rap@olivej.UUCP (Robert A. Pease) writes:
>I have to agree with this, especially in view of the  recent  talk  of
>cutting the costs of net news.  Our Unix Administration group, not too
>long ago, pointed out two Eastern sites to each other that were  about
>25  miles  or  so  apart and were both polling California for news and
>mail.  Maybe someone should take a good look at the distribution paths
>of  net  news and recommend a reorganization to the appropriate system
>administrators.
>-- 
>					Robert A. Pease
>    {hplabs|zehntel|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!oliven!rap

I guess it wouldn't hurt to review some of the paths, but you should note
that most of the wild coast-to-coast routes represent 'private' paths that
piggy back on intra-corporate leased lines or other networks, where the
distance/cost tradeoffs are irrelevant or swamped by other usage.

Unfortunatly, most of these links are unofficial, and it would be fatal
to advertise or commit them to outside use.  One just has to accept that
their presence speeds transport across the net, and improves redundancy.

Neither does this reduce the importance of the offical backbone.  While
they could probably reduce their long-haul calling without major effect,
they still serve an important role as regional transfer and distribution
sites - check how many articles do go through one or more backbone sites.

What may people are really looking for is a simple and equitable way to
separate the techie stuff from the humanities stuff from the drivel.
That allows a site to decide what areas they can justify paying for, and
communicate their selection to other sites on the net.
-- 
George Robbins - now working with,	uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|caip}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing	arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV
Commodore, Engineering Department	fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)