Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!ssbn!bill From: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Geosat transmission of news Message-ID: <1203@ssbn.WLK.COM> Date: 3 Jun 89 01:39:07 GMT References: <371@odi.ODI.COM> <3400@looking.on.ca> <3549@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <3413@looking.on.ca> Reply-To: bill@ssbn.UUCP (Bill Kennedy) Distribution: na Organization: W. L. Kennedy Jr. and Associates, Pipe Creek, TX Lines: 137 I was one of the subscribers in the original Stargate experimental period and I have been watching this discussion with some interest. Forgive me for not trimming the references any more than I have, but some of the remarks lose their meaning if abbreviated. In article <3413@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >In article <3549@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: >> >>You mean so they could continue to perpetuate the monopoly they held, and >>reap the revenue from same. > >Stargate, as I understand it, had to compete in the free market that >exists for general newsfeeds. I know of no monopoly they held or >tried to hold. All they wanted to say was that those who took advantage >of the satellite transmission should all pay for it equally. No, the revenue they collected was 100% voluntary and they had no monopoly. Originally the news was fed from cbosgd and then later moved to emory because it was closer to the uplink. The only thing that was fancy about Stargate news was that there was a rather good filter to eliminate copyright material and the only groups broadcast were the moderated groups. The news input to starbeam (the uplink system) was plain vanilla 2.11 news, the feed to the WTBS uplink was packaged and filtered (it also discarded articles prohibiting Stargate distribution). I agree with Brad's statement (in another article) that the demise was more political than it needed to be. I don't understand why people refused to have their articles propagated via Stargate but some did. The initial subscription fees were rather high. On the other hand, I considered the "rather high" fee reasonable because it took a serious bite out of my long distance phone bill to get news at 2400bps. There was redundancy in the Stargate broadcasts so that if you missed something the first time around, you got it again later. That was a blessing for me because I use my satellite dish and there were plenty of times when I didn't feel like staying tuned to WTBS. By the same token there were plenty of other times when I didn't care, so I left it there. Stargate was a marvelous way to collect the bulky and expensive (by phone) groups like comp.mail.maps and comp.sources.unix. As far as I know, each of the original subscribers paid the same amount whether they were DEC or Bill Kennedy. The only "monopoly" was that you had to subscribe, you had to pay, the program material was plain old unadorned usenet news. > If Stargate really was cheaper, >people would go to it. If it wasn't, nobody would bother and their >admonition not to feed wouldn't have meant anything. It was for me, I have the paperwork to prove it. The Trailblazer modem and some incredibly generous news neighbors have brought today's costs into line with what I can afford (ssbn is funded by me), but if the neighbors' generosity was to diminish, I'd be back on satellite reception. >What I was commenting on was the fact that people weren't satisfied to >let Stargate live or die through this system of free choice. They >opposed it and put the share-right messages on their postings. Yes they did and I'm not sure why. There was even open hostility towards the project and the people who brought it into being. The idea of paying to get news isn't new now, nor was it then. There are still phone and equipment bills to be paid. In my case some money went to Stargate Information Services instead of Southwestern Bell Telephone Company and AT&T. SIS got fewer $$ than did SWBT and AT&T, that's why I subscribed. I never understood the people who refused to let their articles propagate by a method that was faster and more cost effective for my site. >>Actually, I worked in that industry, and I can't see how satellite >>technology is any cheaper to use now than it was two or so years back. > >Perhaps the Stargate folks were way out of line. Could be. [ $$ figures deleted ... ] I don't think so, in my opinion they'd had been better off had they been able to add some program material other than netnews. There's a cost and a risk associated with that and the /usrgroup funding ran out before they could explore much more than they did. For what they did they did well. The advent of uunet and Trailblazers just swept over what they had and did. Had they had more (in my opinion), they might have been able to expand the subscriber base and done more. > $2,000 per month for all of usenet >seems like a good bargain to me -- cheap enough that some people have >decided it's not even worth asking people to contribute. I don't think that's entirely a fair comparison. The Vancouver folks have hardware sales to subsidize the service (you can't get it if you don't have their equipment can you?) and I'm betting that they have some kind of good deal on transponder time. I don't know which bird it's on, but I would guess one of the Anik's which means I'm outside the footprint (I'm in Texas). Stargate was on WTBS which meant that they were on basic cable throughout the US (Canada?) as well as Galaxy I which has a larger than average signal strength and footprint. >This is $192/month. You could buy your downlink quickly at that rate, >particularly if you only wanted one downlink per local calling area. That's more in line with my figures and Stargate's. Given what I paid for my satellite system several years ago, you'd break even in ten months. That's not shabby. If usenet is directly related to your business, there are probably some tax advantages too... Just in case someone gets the notion that I am criticizing Karl or Brad's remarks, I'm not. I do have a little experience with satellite delivery of netnews, a little better than a year's worth, so some of my remarks might sound critical. Not so intended, don't take them as such. I still think that satellite delivery is a good idea. Maybe the fellows in BC have their act together and it can happen. Let me offer two scenarios, both in Texas, maybe similar ones near you. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has two major news "hosses", killer and texbell. Both are suffering from phone line constrictions and CPU cycles. A very similar situation exists in San Antonio where there is one "hoss", similar circumstances. The DFW area is looking into secondary distribution to relieve the "hosses". That means that leaves might have to call three or four sites other than killer or texbell for all the groups they want but it's still local calling. This doesn't help petro since he still would have to spend the cycles to get satellite news delivery, but it would free up some phone time. Metropolitan areas like Dallas-Fort Worth or San Antonio could benefit by satellite delivery for the reasons I mentioned. Better connected areas like Northern California and Chicago have enough "bones" to be able to handle the congestion. This requires some organization and discipline, but it isn't the end of the net as we know it; I think it's a logical follow-on and progression from uunet. If certain areas, as Brad suggests, got satellite links they could propagate quickly and efficiently within their local or reasonable calling area. Branches and leaves could call the downlinks and propagate within their local or reasonable calling area. We'd save the time and expense of the current "long haul" connections and maybe give some cycles and dial tone back to our uunet's, decwrl's, and others. It wasn't a bad idea when Stargate did it, but I think it was premature for the net at large. Sorry for the length, but I thought it was worth thinking about for all news administrators. -- Bill Kennedy usenet {killer,att,cs.utexas.edu,sun!daver}!ssbn!bill internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COM or attmail!ssbn!bill