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

[Daniel Karrenberg]

A few explanations about the situation in Europe are in order I suppose.
This is going to be longer than I'd like!

As to my background and "authority": I am currently member of the board
of EUUG responsible for EUnet.  EUUG is the European Unix User Group
(note Unix is not a noun :-) and EUnet is the European part of the
worldwide UUCP and netnews network.  EUnet has much closer ties with
EUUG than USENET or UUCP has with USENIX.  As for knowing Germany: I'm
German and have been one of the people setting up EUnet in Germany at
unido.  This was against the declared policy of the department I was
working for at the time.  So much for my experience with the "usual"
USENET way of operation :-). 


European telecommunications charges are *much* higher than those in the
US.  Traditionally telecommunications have been provided by state run
monopolies at huge profits subsidizing other postal services or even the
national budgets.  Others have already made this point.  These things
are changing but *very* slowly.  (There is something to be said in fvour of
slow change here in order to maintain a reasonable level of service.  My
impression is that the US have been bitten in some areas by
deregulation.)

International communications costs are even higher.  I pay about .60 US$
a minute to call my girlfriend in Germany from Holland.  She lives 
less than 200 US miles away from me.  In central Europe going any
significant distance means crossing an international border. 

Importing netnews from the US is also quite expensive.  A minute off
peak is about 1.50 US$.  X.25 nets are a little less expensive if you
call from Europe.  X.25 also is checper for intra European international
links.  However the subscription and equipment costs are higher. 

So when EUnet started the objective was to share as many international
links as possible and to get the news from the US only once.  This led
to a much more hierarchical organisation than in USENET with strict
rules for sharing the costs.  This is absolutely needed for fair sharing
of the total cost.  Beleive me, I would really prefer the "anarchic" way
of doing things if it only worked to an acceptable degree of service. 
As someone else has put it: You are very lucky with your telecomms
structure in the US and some large companies "donating" resources.  Here
we ar bitten by nationalism in Europe.  The most internationally minded
companies in Europa are the US ones! 

Back to EUnet: Sites receiving news have to pay a share of the cost to
bring them into a given country and transmitting locally generated
articles outside the country.  If you want an EUnet newsfeed you have to
pay up period.  fairness to those paying alone should be enough reason! 

The shares are actually quite fair and claims about high costs for
individuals are not always true.  In Germany for instance there is a
possibility for individual users to form a group and get one
subscription for all of them.  The only condition is that they are
really individuals and not large organisations who should pay a full
share and that the group does redistribution internally.  I know that
the German backbone site is actively helping individuals to organise
themselves like this. 

If anyone can arrange for a newsfeed themselves, fine.  Some
have mentioned that this is made impossible by EUnet.  This is nonsense,
how could EUnet stop anyone from doing this? 

Some mentioned that EUnet would blacklist such sites.  This is not true.
What we do is make sure that those sites are not using the shared EUnet
infrastructure without paying a fair share.  Some of them have actually
demanded that we pass mail for them at no charge.  How could EUnet agree
to such a thing while those users paying a share for their service would
complain? 

There have been a few attempts to set up an alternative newsfeed for
general use to parts of Europe.  So far all of them failed because of
the cost.  Yes some of them ran for a few months until either the
management of the companies being "used" discovered the phone bill, the
company went bankrupt (two cases) or it was discovered that
communications facilities were actually stolen (I know at least one widely
publicised case). 

As to the numbers in one of the articles there are 35 and not 235 sites
getting news in Germany.  Because of the high cost it is quite common
that EUnet sites use only mail.  Of course the more subscriptions the
less the shares cost but that's a hen and egg problem!  Actually the
maximum charge in Germany is US$150/month for all news, and 60$ for 10%.
I think this is reasonable for larger organisations because it also
includes a help desk and other additional services.  If 10 individuals
organise themselves and get a group subscription 15$/month should be
beareable, shouldn't it?  Just to avoid flames: I personally don't like
volume charging on news but that's what the German backbone and it's
users agreed to do.  And charging of the end sites is a national matter.
Maybe I should mention as an aside that trans-border moneyflow involves
costly conversion over here and we strive to minimise (note British
spelling :-) it. 

Which brings me back to my original point: Conditions are different over
here!  Please take this into account before making quick judgements and
flaming away. 

As to European users having problems getting the news via EUnet I am
always available as EUUG board member to help them find a solution.
-- 
Daniel Karrenberg                    Future Net:  <dfk at cwi.nl>
CWI, Amsterdam                        Oldie Net:  mcvax!dfk
The Netherlands          Because It's There Net:  DFK at MCVAX