Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site Cascade.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!oliveb!Glacier!Cascade!asente From: asente@Cascade.ARPA Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group Subject: Possible cost saving method for backbone sites Message-ID: <18@Cascade.ARPA> Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 15:52:27 EST Article-I.D.: Cascade.18 Posted: Tue Nov 5 15:52:27 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 10-Nov-85 08:25:27 EST Distribution: net Organization: Stanford University CIS Apple Orchard Lines: 26 Xref: watmath net.news:4303 net.news.group:4384 The major argument for discontinuing some of the more voluminous groups is the cost to backbone sites to transmit all the news. Has anyone investigated the technique of putting news on magnetic tape and Federal Express-ing it to other sites? Advantage: It is much cheaper! Discounting the cost of the tapes (which can be reused, after all), it costs less than $20 to Federal Express a tape. Even if you add in the cost of having someone manually mount the tape, I still think you win big. Disadvantages: Sending news now requires more manual intervention than it does now. News will take, on the whole, longer to propogate. Sites could decide which groups are sufficiently important to be sent by phone lines and which are unimportant enough to suffer an extra day's delivery time. I think this is an idea worth at least considering. -paul asente asente@Cascade.ARPA decwrl!Glacier!Cascade!asente Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of magnetic tapes.