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From: lamy@cs.toronto.edu (Jean-Francois Lamy)
Subject: Re: Is it time for a "uunet-north"?
Message-ID: <90Feb3.111544est.4570@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
References: <25CA554B.1357@telly.on.ca> <1990Feb3.104438.8697@me.toronto.edu>
Distribution: ont
Date: 3 Feb 90 16:16:31 GMT
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If what you have in mind is a central node with dial-in access, you would in
effect be re-inventing CSNet (using SL/IP instead of IP/X.25).  I think your
estimate of 1.5 full-time staff is on the low side for such a set-up, and that
you are under-estimating the costs of a leased line to the US (after all, all
of ONET is only able to afford a 32Kbs link to the US, and that makes me
wonder where you'd find the money)

Note as well that there are already sites on ONET that charge for access
(UTCS being one), I don't see how a uunet north would be different in that
sense.  The only tricky point about all this would be whether SL/IP connection
to that uunetnorth (wow, a freudian sl/ip :-) would be able to climb on the
ONET/NSFNET link.  If your aim is to provide SL/IP access for mail and ftp
to uunetnorth, then I don't see any problem at all, and the 16K$ per year
charge would likely be quite competitive with your actual communication tab
(avoiding headaches running the link too).

If you want to allow full IP connectivity through ONET, then you should simply
raise the matter with the ONET board.  To my knowledge, the technical comittee
has discussed the matter, and the links certainly are technically feasible
(there are some already in-place within some member institutions), what has
not been raised is the issue of handling "third party" traffic, and that is
a policy issue.

Finally, the idea of dropping lines to the US and running T1 there is actually
illegal, as I understand things.

Jean-Francois Lamy               lamy@cs.utoronto.ca, uunet!cs.utoronto.ca!lamy
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4