From: wjm@feenix.metronet.com (Bill Middleton)
Subject: Re: sendsys for dfw distribution on Dec 29.
Keywords: sendsys dfw
Organization: Tx Metronet Communications Services, Dallas Tx
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 03:25:05 GMT
Distribution: dfw

In article <Bzzxx1.Euq@egsner.cirr.com> eric@cirr.com (Eric Schnoebelen) writes:
>I have just sent out a sent out a sendsys message with the distribution
>of "dfw", in an effort to map news connectivity in the Dallas/Ft Worth,
>USA area.

  The data you gather could be valuable.  Not in terms of profit, but for 
the improvement of connectivity locally.  I'm all for that.  As the news 
dude here, i've been pondering what could actually be done to improve it.  
Certainly, there seem to be some little glitches here and there, especially 
between what is seen in Dallas, and what is seen in Arlington/Ft. Worth 

  But, i haven't been around long enough to be a critic.  Would just like
to offer a little commentary, and a proposal, to get some feedback.  Now,
there's alot of good folks out there, been doin' this community a good
service, for a long time.  Since killer's demise, (i was only told the story)
the general "administrative leaning" insofar as i can glean it, has been 
toward duplicity, for the sake of assuring deliveries in the event of another
loss.  Certainly this is wise, but perhaps, now, not quite so imperative.

  The uucp net and eventually the radio tcp crowd, will, i think, be the
backbone of connectivity for local machines.  However, as some of you may
already know, other avenues are opening.. There are a number of inet machines
now coming into the market, with various forms of connectivity, from t1 to t3.
They offer all kinds of fancy services, at some pretty high prices.  

  I'd like to avoid that here at Metronet.   
  
  I think that, given the fact that the news itself is free, there should
really be no cost associated with obtaining it.  And as i've indicated, there
are alot of people out there who agree.  But not enough.  The demand outweighs
the available resources.  Am i wrong?  I don't think so.  A quick glance at
the uucp map will bear me out, in the number of sites taking feed, both news
and mail, from uunet direct.  And thats a toll call, ladies and gents.

  Well, i believe that we are in a position to change that.  Suppose 
that one of these new "inet providers" was really just a bunch of
locals, who scraped enough dough together to get hooked up to the inet,
with say, 30 modems?  Kind of a 90's version of killer, but with the power
and access to the Internet of our state network, Sesquinet.  

Well, thats what we are, Texas Metronet, at your service.  And, i assure you
that as you are committed to DFW, so are we.  I am not exactly sure yet how
we can best serve the community, but it is what we WANT to do.  Of course
our main devotions will be paid to our users, as any other business pays 
primary attention to its customers.  But i know that we can help.  In par-
ticular, we are thinking of the following general service offering.

  1. "optimized batch news feed" - from the data, possibly.  To include the
      most popular and important groups in the dfw area.  Feasability? 

  2.  Mail service -    1-hop path to inet under our domain. 
      Via batched smtp if possible.

  3.  Next Day FTP orders - via mail order and straight uucp delivery,
      no encodes.  You specify the site from an archie mail.

  Then, individual sites could still run uucp with their neighbors, for the
rest of their news.  I think we could provide this service for a very fair
price.  We couldn't hold the stuff long, but if we could poll y'all, then 
i think we could get it out of here without overloading our disk.  

  Well, thats it for now.  If you have time, i would like to hear your
thoughts or suggestions on this topic.  Please post your replies, or 
just send me some mail here.  Let me hear from you.


Bill Middleton
Tx. Metronet Newsmeister
wjm@feenix.metronet.com,wjm@decster.uta.edu

-- 
bILL
 
Newsgroups: convex.news.stats,dfw.news.stats