FEED FOR GERMANY WAS:Re: An apology, and a question (uucp in Germany)

[Karl Denninger]

In article <114 at utower.UUCP> fischer at utower.UUCP (Axel Fischer) writes:
>In article <786 at redsox.bsw.com> campbell at redsox.bsw.com (Larry Campbell) writes:
>>I really don't understand this.  Who do you have to pay the $200 to?

>$200 goes to unido "University of Dortmund" the german backbone.

>But ... in germany unido have the monopol for the connection to USA. No one
>(no system administrator) is allowed to give you a Newsfeed if your are not
>registered at unido and if you don't pay the fee.
>You get also every month a bill for the mailing costs.

>>can NOT believe that it costs $47,000 per month just to get Usenet
>>traffic across the ocean!!

>YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT !!!!! We all don't know either what they are doing with
>this much money. We have no idea.

This sounds like something we can help with :-)

Get ten or so systems together, and have one of them poll us.  We'll feed
'ya over there in Germany if you can call here.  We have a Telebit, and the
spare capacity.  And we're reliable as a news source.

Then distribute the newsgroups you get and take donations to defray the costs.
Once you have a few sites doing this Unido will look quite a bit less 
attractive... and they will fall to the almighty God of Capitalism......

At $1.50 a minute, and a full newsfeed running about 20-30 minutes a day on
the Telebit, you're looking at a little over a thousand bucks a month -- split 
10 ways, that's HALF the Unido cost!  And once you're free of unido, you can 
do better -- get 20, 30, or even 50 sites involved.  Well worth doing, if you 
ask me.  

I run this site, so it's certainly within my power to give out newsfeeds.

Any other European sites with the same problem are welcome to contact us as
well; we're flexible and have spare Telebit capacity.

Down with monopolies!

--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl)
Public Access Data Line: [+1 312 566-8911], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
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