From: karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
Subject: Re: Public Access USENET/EMAIL/UNIX
Summary: I'll note a thing or two 
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 23:43:09 GMT
Organization: Macro Computer Solutions, Inc., Chicago, IL

In article <ak7sRB3w165w@willard.UUCP> dawson@willard.UUCP writes:
>bill@unixland.natick.ma.us (Bill Heiser) writes:
>
>> karl@ddsw1.mcs.com (Karl Denninger) writes:
>> >>
>> >>Unbelievable
>> 
>> >Better tell UUNET! :-)
>> 
>> Yeah, and while he's at it he should ask UUNET to provide a feed for
>> $100 per year and see how far he gets with them :-)
>
>As competition with other carriers comes into play, that may indeed become
>realistic in the not-so-distant future.

How long have you been on the net Mr. Dawson? :-)

In a word -- Balderdash.  UUNET has been doing this since I've been on the 
net, which is at least 6 years (although I think they were just starting 
back then).  They're doing quite well with it too.  Why aren't they out of 
business with all those free feed sites around?

The primary difference between a "free" feed and one you pay for is that the
one you pay for is normally more timely and better maintained.  If it isn't
then the provider WILL go out of business or have no customers.  Secondly, 
you aren't going to pass many feeds on with a single phone line these days -- 
or even two.  A >full< feed is 20+MB/daily now, if you don't include the groups
which aren't "mainstream" (alt + the big 7).  EVERYTHING is closer to 40MB/day.
Add a generous overhead for the history file (mine, with 14 days to prevent
dups, is over 12MB right now) and you have a hell of a disk requirement
alone!   At 4MB/hour best speed on a 14.4kbs modem, you are only going to
push about 4 feeds through that beast (including YOUR incoming feed) if you
time it PERFECTLY.  If you do "random queueing" you'll do significantly
worse.  Finally, if someone actually >misses< a connection then you are in
serious trouble -- you might have to expire before the caller can pick up
his news!

You also aren't going to be able to keep up with the flow unless you have
some reasonable power behind this.  Certainly at least a '386 with today's
news load and a couple of people taking from you -- unless you are willing
to dedicate a machine to this and this alone.  More like a '486 or better if 
you have serious additional load.

Finally, if you are willing to go through two or three sites before you hit 
the Internet you CAN certainly manage to do this for free -- but then your
news is 4 days old.  Today TWO day old news is archaic.  The closer you get
to that mystical "instant" connection the more expensive it gets.  UUNET is
expensive for a full connection -- but right there NOW.

Then there is email.  Sure, you can do the uucp map route and get by without
being charged anything.  You'll also have 2+ day delays on some of your mail. 
Or you can go with a connection to UUNET or somewhere else "on the cable" --
and get your mail delivered in a couple of hours.  If that isn't fast
enough, you can go directly on the Internet -- and pay $1k/month plus $10k
in capital equipment and installation to get going.


It wasn't always this way.  I used to run news on an 60mb disk drive when I
got started six years back.  That kept a week's worth most of the time.  
Nowdays that would keep ONE day of news -- MAYBE -- once you add in the 
history file and a thread database such as "trn" uses.  I used to be 
satisfied with 2 day delivery on email and 4-5 day old news too.  PC-Persuit 
used to be viable for sending feeds across the country on $30/month.  Not 
any more.  PC Persuit no longer could even HANDLE the traffic, say much 
less do it for $30 monthly.  Sub-6 hour response is my metric now.  The old 
days were also the days of unmeasured local calls.  That's also history for 
Chicago, and much of the US.  I predict the entire USA will be 
measured-service within another 10 years -- but there may be competition 
by then (see the recent articles on opening up local dialtone access).

I have 450MB dedicated to News, and am going to go to 650MB within a couple
of weeks.  450MB gets cramped sometimes.....  and I only want to keep 5
days worth around here.  The barrier?  Another $350 for a second external
disk cabinet (I've got lots of peripherals on this beast.) 

When you get hooked on NetNews, and quick email response, you find that it
is worth something (either phone bills or direct cost) to get that quick
response.  Either way you're gonna pay for it.  When you factor in the phone
charges a $1/hour or so charge from a provider is chump change in the balance
of things.

--
Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Data Line: [+1 312 248-0900] Anon. arch. (nuucp) 00:00-06:00 C[SD]T
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