Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-sem.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!brl-sem!ron From: ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie) Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.news.adm Subject: Re: Saving the net Message-ID: <491@brl-sem.ARPA> Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 16:34:56 EST Article-I.D.: brl-sem.491 Posted: Tue Nov 5 16:34:56 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 06:21:08 EST References: <639@lasspvax.UUCP> Organization: Ballistic Research Lab Lines: 18 Xref: watmath net.news.group:4327 net.news.adm:411 I'm not going to include any of this discussion because it was long and incorrect. The author makes several invalid assumptions. 1. Netnews flows in a true tree like fashion. Wrong, net news can and sometimes is richly connected. 2. The major expense of backbone sites is distribution to local sites. No, not quite. Many people poll the backbone sites and other local sites for news. Remembering the original UUCP paper, you can divide the net in to three classes of hosts: Rich hosts (with autodialers), Cheap hosts (incoming modems only), and Paranoid hosts (no modems). Handling news on any host is a major load regardless of which way the charging on the phone lines go. In addition, the backbones are still paying for the high expense backbone node to backbone node calls. -Ron