From: utzoo!laura
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: mush heads unite -- what good is net.test anyway? 
Article-I.D.: utzoo.2215
Posted: Tue Jun 29 06:12:18 1982
Received: Tue Jun 29 06:12:18 1982


	Sending netnews is not a right which every good north american
(oops, austrailian too) has written indelibly upon their sacred constitution
and unix license.  Netnews is not free.  If it were, one could argue that
anyone has the right to post anything they want in a news group like "net.test".

The last time I checked, though, there was a substantial phone bill which
our site had to pay.  I have done a quick-and-somewhat-dirty check of what
net.test is costing this site, and now am ready to join up on the side of
the mush heads.

Calls from utzoo (Toronto) to decvax (Merrimac) made after 1200 midnight come
at the relativley cheap rate of $0.25 a minute.  I just sent a test article
to "to.hcr" a group which exists on our site and on hcr, a site that connects
to us.  It had a simple text "this is test of the cost of net.test".  It took
17 seconds (timed from the last digit dialed to the autodialer returning to
normal state).  I dont know how much of uucp is overhead, but, chop off 2
seconds as overhead (which will make the math easier).

15 seconds is 1/4th of a minute.  that means, had that call come from decvax,
it would have cost us 8.25 cents.  At three net.test articles a night (the
mean over the last 2 weeks) that is 24.75 cents.  At 30 days a month that is
742.50 cents.  This is *very expensive* on a site which up until recently
did not have net.space or fa.polisci or fa.armsd on the grounds that *it
was too expensive*.  Even if I have grossly underestimated the uucp overhead
time, if 50% of the cost is uucp overhead, then I still must pay more than
$3 a month for the privledge of seeing that site A now talks to site B when,
in more than one case, site A is in the *same room* as site B, and in many 
cases is a local phone call to site B.

We have new sites and new polling frequencies and tests in Toronto all the
time -- but nobody has to pay for them.  On the whole, i cant think of a
single reason for net.test's existance -- is there any reason why the *whole
net* should see any test message at all?  


					laura creighton
					decvax!utzoo!laura