An apology, and a question (about uucp in Germany)

[Joe Buck]

In article <567 at axis.fr> philip at axis.fr (Philip Peake) writes:
>The cost of shipping NEWS (the USENET part) accross the Atlantic is divided
>between these OFFICIAL sites.
>
>This is where it becones interesting - apparently our German friend is an
>UNOFFICIAL site - which basically means someone is feeding him NEWS
>without declaring it - THIS IS ANTI-SOCIAL - the rest of us are paying
>more than we need to.

The person in question is not freeloading.  He is placing phone calls
across the Atlantic himself.  The fact that people can do this and
save money suggests that the EUNET organization isn't set up in the
most efficient possible way -- someone is finding it cheaper to
transport a (partial) newsfeed across the Atlantic than to pay 1/Nth
the cost of having EUNET do it.

The rest of you are NOT paying more than you need to, since this
person is unwilling to pay your rates.

>One of the perenial complaints is that NEWS is too expensive here - no wonder
>it is expensive if it is only a small percentage of those actually using
>it who pay !

This guy you are yelling about is paying in full.  It's just that he
is not paying YOU.

-- 
-- Joe Buck	jbuck at epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck