Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!access!edm!steve
From: steve@edm.UUCP (Stephen Samuel)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Cut traffic? (was: Re: The death of USENET)
Message-ID: <3169@edm.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 88 09:45:51 GMT
References: 
Organization: Unexsys Systems, Edmonton,AB.
Lines: 28

From article , by webber@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber):
> In article <10382@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>, smb@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes:
>> In article <5017@dasys1.UUCP>, tneff@dasys1.UUCP writes:
>> >  1) If AT&T changes from a high volume backbone site to a high volume
>> >     leaf site (this is how I interpret their announcement anyway), then
>> >     what lucky non-AT&T machine gets to be their feed? ;-)  Were the
...
> Now those two sites are going to
> have to talk to each other directly (which was obviously more expensive
> for them than talking to ihnp4 or they wouldn't have used the ihnp4 connection
> in the first place).  Net effect -- non-att mail will now be more expensive
> for the net as a whole and most likely for sites that neighbor att as well.

It's not necessarily cheaper to go thru att than direct -- at least,
not in phone charges. However, it often IS cheaper to do it in terms of 
administration. (why get a direct connection when ihnp4 has all the
connectivity??).

There was a time when the fastest way to get a message from Edmonton
to Calgary (about 180mi) was to bounce it thru Michigan and Vancouver
(twice across the continent)!!  Needless to say: a direct call to 
Calgary would have been cheapest, but the way things were set up, it
wasn't the fastest.
-- 
-------------
 Stephen Samuel 			Disclaimer: You betcha!
  {ihnp4,ubc-vision,mnetor,vax135}!alberta!edm!steve
  BITNET: USERZXCV@UOFAMTS