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From: wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: 2 questions and 2 answers about satellite netnews
Message-ID: <6665@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 19-Dec-84 14:28:00 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.6665
Posted: Wed Dec 19 14:28:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Dec-84 05:26:49 EST
References: <472@vortex.UUCP>
Organization: USAMC ALMSA
Lines: 49

I think there are still a couple concepts about the satellite-fed
netnews project that remain vague in all our minds (at least they are
so in mine!); these are:

a) As has been asked by other posters, what about the posting of netnews?
Will not each site still have to have the same existing telephone line
connections simply to OUTPUT their site's generated netnews items? I
can see that many micro sites may just operate in a receive-only mode;
it would be well worth the costs for any company involved in UNIX software
simply to scarf up whatever appears on net.sources and net.unix-wizards,
I would think, and the rest is just a side benefit. But any site currently
involved in two-way netnews will undoubtedly want to continue to generate
inquiries and participate in dialogs; for this, the telephone connections
will be necessary.

b) If a site still has to have telephone connections, the obvious 
improvement to look for is to be making SHORTER telephone calls.
This is how Lauren has stated the cost of the decoder & etc. will be
justified; in the savings off existing phone bills. However, there is
a point here that has not been covered -- the stargate-distributed 
netnews is explicitly NOT complete; the call for "screeners" has been
public. Therefore, what comes over stargate will be some percentage
of netnews. Will not the rest of netnews continue to be sent via 
telephone call distribution? And will not each site's software have
to compare posting-ID's to eliminate duplicates, just like it now
does for telephone-distributed netnews? Therefore, the calls will
not have to carry the actual text of the the items previously gleaned
off the satellite distribution, but the overhead information of this
rejection of duplicates and back-and-forth dialog will remain. As 
the sheer volume of netnews increases, as it has steadily done, will
not the telephone-call expenses return to their present high level
(and even exceed that) just from this cause alone? There would be an
initial drop in costs, of course, but the costss would then begin
to rise after that drop.

Or are we assuming that, once the stargate satellite distribution
is in place, the only netnews that will get national distribution will 
be that approved of and passed by the screeners? Anything could get
local distribution, but no backbone or major site would promulgate
anything not satellite-distributed? (This may be a good thing, so I'm
not flaming about it -- I'm just trying to understand the concepts.)

I know I'd appreciate it if Lauren would address these specific issues
for all of us. 

Regards,
Will Martin

USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin     or   ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA