Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!gatech!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.mail,net.news.config,net.news.newsite,net.net-people
Subject: Re: Looking for Chicago Usenet Access
Message-ID: <2531@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Sep-86 15:43:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2531
Posted: Wed Sep 10 15:43:08 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Sep-86 23:59:26 EDT
References: <964@hou2g.UUCP> <5082@cbrma.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 32
Xref: mnetor net.mail:1134 net.news.config:458 net.news.newsite:397 net.net-people:776

In article <5082@cbrma.UUCP> ask@cbrma.UUCP (A.S.Kamlet(Art)) writes:
>In article <964@hou2g.UUCP> scott@hou2g.UUCP (Ma-Ma-Ma-Max Ma-Ma-Max Headroom) writes:
>>He has tried chinet,
>>but the administrator there has said that his link with ihnp4 is
>>"tenuous" at best; he is only allowing access to usenet (and apparantly
>>by extension, E-mail) to people he knows, even though my bro has said
>>he will gladly pay the "subscriber" fee.
>:
>Is that right?  Does chinet charge a subscription fee to let people
>join the net?  And is ihnp4 its link?   I sort of got the idea that
>this was a non-commercial net.

The net is noncommercial, but that doesn't mean every host on it is
noncommercial.  Could a random person call Art on the phone and demand
a login on cbrma for free?  Of course not - cbrma has policies about
who it will allow on the machine, and what they have to do in exchange
for that login.  (Probably involves their job at Bell Labs.)

Similarly, a public access host like chinet or well might be a general
purpose UNIX machine, run by a ``computer center'' like entity, which
charges for access to the machine, and happens to have connections
into Usenet and/or UUCP.  Chinet can't charge for the right to receive
or send mail or news, but they can charge for the machine resources on
chinet consumed by a user receiving or sending mail or news.  From the
user viewpoint it may amount to the same thing, but the fundamental
point is that those machine resources belong to chinet, and they can
allocate them any way they see fit.  Also, chinet doesn't have an exclusive
franchise in Chicago to redistribute netnews, so if they charge an
unreasonable fee, there's nothing to stop a user from finding someone
else to connect in through instead.

	Mark Horton