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

[Joseph P. Larson]

In article <987 at hawkmoon.MN.ORG> det at hawkmoon.MN.ORG (Derek E. Terveer) writes:
>In article <786 at redsox.bsw.com>, campbell at redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes:
>> In the US, you just find a local Usenet site with a friendly system
>> administrator and set up a uucp link.  If it's a local call, it's free.
>> What prevents you from doing that in Germany?  Even if local calls
>> aren't free, $200/month seems hard to believe (I suspect that, with
>> decent modems, I could get a full feed from California for less than
>> that, at night time rates).
>
>When i lived in Nederland (holland) local calls were charged at 10c (dutch
>I have also heard that it is relatively difficult to get 2400 baud modems in
>germany, and quite difficult to get >2400 baud modems.

I did some other math.  Our full news feed is about 5 Meg a day.  I think
this is expanded.  Assuming 50% less phone traffic (compressed, not quite a
full feed, or what-not), here's what I get:

With a 2400-baud line, we get about 200 chars/sec throughput on our UUCP
traffic here.  This means that the 2.5 Meg of data is going to take 3.5
hours to send.  Now, let's see.  3.5 hours * 30 days is 105 hours of phone
conversation.  Call it 100.  6000 minutes.  For $200.  3 and 1/3rd cents a
minute.  If phone rates in Germany are roughly comparable to those here in
Minnesota, then you need 10 sites being served by on long-distance call.
Do they charge for local calls in Germany?

I guess I understand where the $200 goes.  Now, if local calls are free in
Germany, then good UUCP map management should help to cut the cost.  200
sites receiving a cross-atlantic feed should be... Let's see.  Call it 70
cents a minute late-night.  Is this about right?  It's probably higher, but
that's $21 a month.

-J
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