From: jeff@vela.acs.oakland.edu (Jeff Marraccini)
Subject: Re: My damn modem (or Merit's damn connection)
Organization: Oakland University, Rochester MI.
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 20:54:18 GMT

jp@tygra.Michigan.COM (John Palmer) writes:
>I too have some problems, only mine happen during UUCP connections to
>destroyer. In the last few days, Merit chokes up after about 10 minutes
>and dumps the connections.

I've had a couple problems like this lately as well.  I added
%TRANSPARENT=ON to by UUCP script.  The jury's not in yet if this
helps, but it might be worth a try... 

>Regarding the Detroit dial-in modems: Wayne State University is 
>responsible for these. Its really sad that they've chosen to spend
>a few million on a mainframe to run a dinosaur OS like MTS while
>they still have 2400 baud stone-age modems. HEY WSU - WAKE UP: 2400
>baud went out years ago. We need 9600/14400 V.32/V.32bis wil V.42/V.42bis
>error correction/compression!! If you spent $4k for several racks of 
>these, you'd be helping more people than when you spend 2 million
>on a 5890. If U of M can pitch their stone-aged technology and provide
>what I consider essential technology, then so can you.

Well, you have a right to your opinion.  The Merit/MichNet lines are
being substantially used by NON-UNIVERSITY USERS, including yourself.
I work at a university, and my job is to support university users.
However, people have found that I'm also willing to put out a large effort
for "outsiders".  Others in the university organizations may not be as
willing to do this.  Merit boils down for a free-lunch for you folks.
Many of you NEVER PAY A CENT to use resources that other people
(students, primarily) are paying computing fees to support. 

Sure, modems are "cheap".  But, there are other costs that you didn't
factor in that are germane to Wayne State: some of their remote sites
use 9.6Kbps lines to get back to their network.  A single 9600bps
modem would saturate that line.  Ok, go to 56Kbps (or higher.)  Wait
'till you get the bill (and it's a monthly recurring charge, at that.)

As a counter-example to your opinion, when you have a UNIVERSITY
RESEARCHER that, as one individual, uses up a substantial amount of
the mainframe CPU, taking time away from other users that have work to
do, it's time to get a new mainframe.  You can't tell the researcher
to go away: they're legitimate users, and they're often the driving
force in computing.

On the other hand, Merit/MichNet users do deserve higher-speed modems.
But, I can tell you that based on my experience (at Oakland
University) administrative preference is to upgrade the local dial-up
banks first.  Wayne State is upgrading their local dial-up banks now.
We're adding modems, too, but there'll be more added to the local
dial-up banks than to our Merit node.  Merit is a lower priority for
the administration, because of the high amount of non-Oakland
University users, as well as the high amount of what could be termed
abusive users.

Ask the folks at Merit how many people tie up a Merit/MichNet port for
hours, and sometimes, DAYS on end doing ppp/slfp connections, mudding,
etc.  The administative types know about this behavior, and it
certainly doesn't help our case when we try to get limited funds to
upgrade the Merit dial-up ports (yes, I do advocate expanding and
increasing the speed of our Merit node's modems.)

So, unless an outside party decides to step up the ante by offering
equipment, for at least a while, the Merit/MichNet dial-ups at some
universities will remain low-speed.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Marraccini                              jeff@vela.acs.oakland.edu <- Work
Computing Resource Administrator             jeff@nucleus.mi.org       <- Home
Oakland University                           +1 313 370-4542
Rochester, MI USA 48309-4401        "The Computer is your Friend." -- Paranoia
Newsgroups: mi.misc