Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!usenix.UUCP!rick From: rick@usenix.UUCP (Rick Adams) Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix,news.misc Subject: UUNET Communications Service Available Message-ID: <44002@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> Date: Wed, 24-Jun-87 18:45:26 EDT Article-I.D.: beno.44002 Posted: Wed Jun 24 18:45:26 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 26-Jun-87 06:27:03 EDT Distribution: na Organization: Usenix Association Lines: 141 Keywords: new improved Xref: mnetor comp.org.usenix:285 news.misc:625 UUNET General Information At the Winter 87 USENIX Conference in Washington, DC, the USENIX Association announced the funding of the UUNET project on an experimental basis. UUNET became operation in mid-May and currently has over fifty subscribers. UUNET is non-profit communications service that provides ac- cess to USENET news, UUCP mail, and many standards (including the Internet RFCs and comp.std.unix archives). UUNET is the newest experimental project of the USENIX Association and has the unpre- cedented cooperation of DARPA. For this experiment, DARPA has authorized the use of the Center for Seismic Studies personnel, resources and communica- tions facilities. This allows UUNET to house its host computer at a well-staffed and maintained computer center and to provide the high quality services necessary for this project. In addi- tion, DARPA has authorized use of the ARPANET gateway at the Center on an experimental basis to test the feasibility of mail forwarding between ARPANET and non-ARPANET sites. This is the first time a joint project like this has been initiated and the experiment will be carefully conducted to as- sure that all ARPANET and Center policies are followed. The technical results of the experiment will be presented to DARPA for their consideration of the long term possibilities of contin- ued interconnection and to USENIX for their funding considera- tion. Why Should I Subscribe? 1) Cost: If you are currently paying for long distance calls to send uucp mail or news, then you should save a substantial amount of money in communications costs. 2) Reliability: UUNET exists as a communications relay. It will never be unavailable because some other project needs it. Nor will it be unavailable because no one has the time to maintain it. It is run as a dedicated service, not as a sideline nor as a favor to other sites. The number of in- termediate hops for news and mail will be greatly reduced, thereby increasing the reliability. 3) Availability: UUNET will be the best connected news machine in the country. _A_n_y_o_n_e can be directly connected to a backbone site and not have to depend on the kindness of others to redistribute newsgroups that are important to you. Of course, you may have a full newsfeed, a partial newsfeed, or none at all. You get what you are willing to pay for. (A full news feed would cost about $175 per month in connect time.) UUNET will always carry all newsgroups. This includes any new news categories that may appear other than those in the _s_t_a_n_d_a_r_d set. 4) Accessibility: UUNET has been authorized to function as an AR- PANET mail gateway. Gateways to other networks and mail ser- vices will also be set up. UUNET can also act as the ARPANET mail forwarder for your domain. 5) Archives: UUNET will make available for uucp access an exten- sive archive of publicly available UNIX software. At a minimum, this will include the latest GNU software, the la- test Kermit distributions (for many cpu types, not just UNIX), all the ARPANET RFCs, the latest UUCP map information (updated daily from the master copy), access to the Simtel- 20 archives, and the netlibd archives at Argonne (EISPACK, LINPACK, etc). Again, you pay only for the cost of transfer- ring the software. You will never again have to worry about how to obtain software that is _a_v_a_i_l_a_b_l_e _f_o_r _p_u_b_l_i_c _f_t_p. It will be made available for you to uucp. How Does It Work? Operationally, UUNET consists of a 10 processor Sequent B21 located at the Center for Seismic Studies in Arlington, VA. The system is connected to Tymnet via a high-speed leased line. It can easily handle 25 simultaneous uucico transfers and will be upgraded to match demand. It is administered by the same people who are currently administering _s_e_i_s_m_o (everybody's favorite mail relay...). Operations personnel are on site 24 hours/day Monday - Friday and someone is always on call on weekends. Availability and reliability of the system will be high. The system is dedi- cated to UUNET and has no function other than as a communications relay. Currently the UUNET machine is tightly coupled to _s_e_i_s_m_o. This means that having a connection to UUNET is effectively hav- ing a connection to _s_e_i_s_m_o, i.e. a well connected news and mail relay. The UUNET system is now fully operational. To access the UUNET system from within the United States, you dial a local phone number (from thousands of US cities) and connect to Tymnet. You are then connected to UUNET via the Tym- net X.25 public data network. International sites may access UUNET via direct host-to-host X.25 connection. No special hardware or software is required (other that the standard UNIX UUCP programs). The connection to Tymnet is made with an ordi- nary modem (V.22bis/Bell 212A/Bell 103). Accessing UUNET will be as easy as with any other UUCP connection. What Does It Cost? The cost is $3 per hour of connect time during off-peak times ($5 per hour from Hawaii). Off-peak times are 6:00 PM to 7:00 AM Monday - Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. (Your time zone is used to determine peak or off-peak time, not neces- sarily the time zone in which the UUNET system is located). Time is charged by the minute, with a 3 minute minimum per connection. It is anticipated that most traffic will take place during off- peak rates. Access is available during peak rate times at sub- stantially higher rates ($20 - $32 per hour depending on loca- tion). UUNET can also call you for $20 per hour. There is a membership charge of $30 per month (less than $1 per day) to cov- er administrative costs. Summary As previously mentioned, USENIX has funded UUNET for an ex- perimental period. Currently funding exists through November 1. To offer these services at these prices, UUNET must generate a large volume of traffic. If a large enough volume of traffic is seen by the middle of October, USENIX will spin off the UUNET ex- periment into an independent non-profit organization that will continue the service with the same basis. If a large enough in- terest is not shown to allow UUNET to recover its operating costs, USENIX will regrettably have to discontinue funding. If your organization has come to depend on electronic mail and news as part of its daily business, you need a professional communications service that you can depend on. If you are consid- ering subscribing to UUNET, please do so soon. If enough early support is not shown, the service may not be available when you decide you need it. For a subscription form or for further information, please contact: Peter Salus UUNET/USENIX P.O. Box 2299 Berkeley, CA 94710 +1 415 528 8649 {seismo,uunet,ucbvax,cbosgd,ames,amdahl}!usenix!uunet-request