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

[Wolf Paul]

In article <9462 at csli.Stanford.EDU> gandalf at csli.stanford.edu (Juergen Wagner) writes:
>There are a few factors which make Usenet connections cheaper in the U.S.:
> ...
>o Unido, the German backbone site at the University of Dortmund is the ONLY
>  backbone site in Germany. It receives news via mcvax in Amsterdam.
> ...
>What is being developed is a high-speed research Internet based on ISO-OSI,
>which may make receiving news and e-mail from overseas much cheaper because
>of gateways to NSFnet. It may however take a while until this network is
>fully established and able to support hosts other than those at universities,
>research institutions and large companies...

Particularly since that support is not really as much a technical issue as
it is a political one.

Even now it it possible for a site or group of sites to bypass mcvax and unido
(or the other national backbone sites in the case of other countries in Europe)
by using a Trailblazer modem and a friendly host in the US; however, since the
EUNET backbones consider that a violation of THEIR monopoly (note that in
Europe, it is not only the phone companies that are monopolistic), and will
block all traffic to and from such sites, setting up such a direct link to
the US without simultaneously paying the normal EUNET charges effectively
cuts you off from other European sites. This was discussed at length in 
news.admin a few months ago.

Thus, while I think it would be technically quite feasible for a UNIX site on
this research internet which Juergen mentions, to feed uucp-only sites in its
city or neighboring area, this would result in that site and its leaf nodes
being blacklisted by EUNET. No serious site is going to take that risk for the
sake of some "hobbyist net junkies".
-- 
Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101
UUCP:   {texbell, killer, dalsqnt}!dcs!wnp
DOMAIN: wnp at killer.dallas.tx.us or wnp%dcs at texbell.swbt.com