From: avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet
Subject: Re: CIS on the internet? Why not?
Date: 26 Sep 1992 16:06:51 -0400
Organization: Berkeley Software Design
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net

In article <1a0ickINNddu@agate.berkeley.edu> muh@physics.Berkeley.EDU (Yury M. Mukharsky) writes:
>Relcom is very expensive, SUEARN is
>free.

For whom? Most RELCOM's customers are not research institutions.
I have no idea what SUEARN is going to do when it'll live off the
Karnegie Foundation's money. So far their soliciting from the Academy
of Science was unsuccessful. We obviously have different views of
what the net is -- you think of it as an appendix from Western
nets with only a few nodes inside which is basically treated as
a "remote terminal" eligible to pay full end-user costs (somebody
can do it for them as in case of SUEARN); my model is the nation-wide
internal network living on it's own funds and having ZERO-PAYMENT
agreements with other world networks about mutual excahnge (being a
member of EUnet RELCOM pays organizational fees, though).
For now the practice shows that effective internal network is much
more useful than appendix to the world networks -- how else you can
explain that the internal traffic in RELCOM is two orders of magnitude
higher than international? Eventually EUnet will became an "appendix"
to RELCOM; the customer base of RELCOM is already the largest between
EUnet's member networks and there is a HUGE potential for further growth.

[I guess it's the difference between "Americans will came and teach
us how to to things" and "We can do it ourselves" kinds of mentality].

>Well, you can
>not use small letters, and send messages more than 20 kB. With Relcom
>prices, you can not send such messages anyway. 

Huh? So far RELCOM is 8-bit transarent and (volunatrily imposed) upper
limit on message sizes is about 300k. If you're on EUnet you'll get all
those cyrillic letters. US networks carry only ASCII characters, though.

>It just too expensive.

Show me a public networking service which is LESS expensive.
(Public means the one which is available to the general public).
In US competitors would kill RELCOM for such kind of practice (here it is
called "dumping").

>BTW, what do you mean by "standard" world rates?

Well, ask about prices of UUNET, PSI or EUnet and other organizations
selling networking connectivity. Then multiply it by the current exchange rate.

>Some hidden cost of Internet or commercial services?

Internet is paid by US taxpayers. The things outside US are not called
"Internet" FYI. What's the "hidden cost" of commercial services?

BITNET/EARN was sponsored by IBM and DEC (and others). After IBM discontinued
their support to BITNET they were desperately searching for the sources of
funding -- the idea to get HUGE money from Karnegie Foundation for the
establishing connection to the USSR. The national fee for participating
in EARN is proportional to GNP -- and despite the economical crisis in USSR
is turned to be MUCH MUCH more than connectivity of the few users costs.
The irony is that the curreent Karnegie Foundation's projects in Russia
use RELCOM for their communication because EARN & IOH people spent TOO much
time making something woking when RELCOM was already in place and working.

That's exactly what one can expect when chemists are building networks.
RELCOM is founded and run by computer professionals who knew what and how
to do without the "technical help" from the West.

>If later, that's wrong, as Relcom is
>connected to part of Internet services only, and thus can serve
>only non-commercial organisation, which do not have lot's of money.

Ha-ha. Ever red the NSFNET chapter? How do you think why UUNET Technoligies, Inc.,
ANS, PSI, EUnet and a dozen of others happily sell IP connectivity?
NSFNET do not carry traffic between two commercial companies, but it DOES
allow exchange between the private sector and government-funded organizations.
Moreover, there are moves to commercialize it's services to a certain extent
to raise money for further development.

--vadim
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet