From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: News in Europe (was FAS 2.10 async driver...)
Date: 28 Aug 92 01:39:05 GMT
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

madsere@okys.infoserv.com (Rene Madsen) writes:

>In article <2504@aegis.or.jp>, davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes:
>> madsere@okys.infoserv.com (Rene Madsen) writes:
>> 
>> [* incredibly long quote (for someone trying to save money) omitted *]

>I think you misunderstood me. I am not out to save money at all cost. If 
>I was, I would no longer be subscribing to usenet!

Suit yourself.

>I apparently have to repeat what I wrote in the post: There is a reason
>for the news group system. People can subscribe to their need! FAS is 
>is many people's need, but probably also something that many people 
>either can live without, get from alt.source or pick from a ftp archive.

I could be wrong but I think what Uwe was trying to say was the
there are sites (like your's I would guess) that can't afford to
subscribe to alt.sources as it has too much traffic but they need
FAS very much. And (like your's I would guess) they don't have ftp
either so that's not much of an option either.
 
>> When I first read about how somebody in Europe was dialing the U.S. to
>> get a feed, it seemed odd, to say the least.
>> 
>[ details about WINC omitted ]

>Yup, that is apparently just like Europa. It _is_ possible to get a
>news feed from one of the universities, but the prices I have got 
>so far are _far_ above the price for the US connection (phone lines
>included) I'm still looking though.

OK. I believe it.

>> >Asbestos suit on, gloves, boots ... ok ready for the flames ;-)
>> 
>> I think you will find the flames were directed at 1) calling a
>> well respected poster a 'bastard' and 2) not providing enough
>> information such that one could understand the your situation.

>1) I agree that the language was unnecceary, and so was the language
>several replies came in.

Agreed.

>2) I have seen at least one posting here saying something like: 'if
>you don't like the situation then get lost'. I repeat again: There
>is a reason for the news group system! (look above). Who is to judge
>what software is 'important enough' to be submitted to a non-source 
>group? Personally I have several programs that I would concider 
>equal important. 

Likewise, who is to judge that a particular piece of software isn't
'important enough'? According to Uwe's post, this wasn't the first
time he had posted the source for FAS and there wasn't any
complaint.  Now there are a few complaints but he still feels it is
worth posting.  I would imagine if the majority (or perhaps even a
signifcant minority) would complain, he might well rethink his
decision. As it is, you guys are crying in the wilderness.

>[stuff deleted]
>> It might help even more if you would tell us why one of the sites in
>> your area can't get the feed from the U.S. and provide it to others. 
>> Not a flame: I want to understand the situation.

>Which sites? The only sites I know of in this area are the 'official'
>backbones run by the university of Belgium and the university of
>Luxembourg. 

I'm talking about *your* site. Is there some good reason why you
guys can't get together and have one of you poll the U.S. and share
the cost? 

>They both charge extreme amounts of money for the service.
>A lot more than I can get it for in the states.  As an example, I'm
>currenly paying annually ~$165 for a maximum of 33MB (news and mail),
>plus a $15 activation fee. The phonebill for this would, with the
>current 400 cps that is possible on a standard (read lousy quality)
>atlantic phone line, be ~$1,400. That's a total of ~$1,580 for the 
>first year.

If you mean 33MB a year--and I think you do--that's sure not much news.
Assuming that you are polling only once a day and that it take approx.
one minute for uucico to get a CONNECT and login, the means it's costing
you 365/60 = ~6 hours. Then would come the data ( (33 X 1,024,000) /
400 ) / 3600  = 23 hours. The total would thus be 29 X $95 (which is
what you said you were paying) to give $2,755 for the line charges.
Yet you say only ~$1,400 for the line charges ... what am I missing here?

Further, what kind of link do you have that only gets ~400 CPS?

Aegis uses a T2500 to link with a T2500 Unixland in Masachusetts and
it started out around 400-600 CPS but by playing around with the
undocumented registers it now runs at ~1,000 CPS.  Since testing
showed the line conditions are different at 00:20 and 07:20, it's set
up to use different init strings. 

>Buug, the belgian university charges a ~$650 activation fee AND ~$.20 pr
>KB transmission fee. To compare to the above, that would be $2,300 for
>the first year, plus phone cost ~$700 giving $3,000.

Compared to what they are going to ask for news here, that's not so much.
It will cost approx. $1500 to signup, and $1500 per year. Aegis gets
a lot more news (500+ groups) so it's current local line charge runs
maybe $1,400. Under the new setup it will cost another $1,400 so after
the signup it will cost approx. $4,200. Yet, even so, it's still cheaper
than calling the U.S. even though at night we only pay about $50/hour.

The bottom line difference is the besides the $1,500 signup and the
$1,400 yearly it will costs 20 yen/minute to get the data (10
yen/minute to the telco, 10 yen/minute to the host) and this will go
at ~1,400 CPS.  International calls cost 110 yen/minute and only go
at ~1,000 CPS. 

I'd really like to understand why you think it's cheaper to call the
U.S. as my figures say that it's less to access locally even though
it costs a lot.

>Luug, the Luxembourg university has a similar charge (actually based
>on that of Belgium) but is only just starting up, and can, as far as
>I know, not even provide the service yet.

>The universities say, that one reason that they're so expensive is their
>atlantic phone cost, which I can't understand ... but I guess _someone_
>has to pay for the university's (the students) own use of usenet.

Here in Japan, the universities' lines charges are picked up by
Mombusho (Education Ministry) but they don't provide any funding to
administer the links so the fees we I'm talking about are only to
provide/administer the link between the university network and the
non-university sites. As far as I know it doesn't include line
charges but I could be mistaken as the documentation is all in
Japanese and I don't have a full translation yet. 

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087