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Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.news.adm
Subject: Re: Saving the net
Message-ID: <6120@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 11:58:04 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6120
Posted: Tue Nov  5 11:58:04 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 11:58:04 EST
References: <639@lasspvax.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 37
Keywords: money, fairness

>     The current distribution method, if my inference is correct is that 
> after the news has arrived at A, A calls up 1,2,3,4 in turn and passes
> the news on to them each in turn.  Probably, at the same time A also 
> collects the any new news from 1,2,3,4.  Thus A pays for all of the
> communication between it and 1,2,3,4...
>     I suggest this should be turned around.  Machines 1,2,3,4 should each
> call A and ask for any new news...

In our particular situation, actually, this wouldn't make much difference.
Machines 1-4 are all local calls.  The problem is getting the news here in
the first place.

There are more general problems with schemes like this.  The people with
the worst phone bills are the backbone sites, for whom the situation isn't
as simple as presented above.  Backbone sites generally have redundant
links to other backbone sites; those links are major factors in the phone
bill.  Unfortunately, this part of the bill cannot be straightforwardly
charged to a single site -- it's just part of keeping the network running.

Another problem is that the phone bills long ago became serious enough that
most sites are reluctant to accept asymmetric Long Distance links:  "if we're
going to call you, you have to call us too, so we don't pay the whole bill".
When it's a question of A getting the news from B, this can often be avoided
by B simply refusing to budge.  When the relationship is less one-sided,
this isn't a viable approach.

>     The main point to note is that if every machine gets every piece of news
> then EVERY machine PAYS the SAME in phone bills because each machine pays
> only for what it gets, not for what it feeds to others.

Unfortunately, phone bills are a function of distance as well as volume.
It is not at all uncommon to have one site in an area that does the bulk
of the long-haul transmission, with local redistribution fanning out from
there.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry