Newsgroups: news.admin
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: How to eliminate the cost of over 1/5 (or more) of net traffic
Message-ID: <1988May13.161045.4702@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1616@looking.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13 May 88 16:10:45 GMT

> ... They collect all the binaries, sources and maps for a week,
> put them on another media and mail (yes, postal mail!) them out to
> all subnets that want them...

One minor negative aspect that's worth mentioning is that mailing tapes,
unlike queueing uucp transfers, requires significant amounts of human time.
(The AT&T Software Toolchest, for example, won't mail you a tape no matter
how much you beg and plead, last I heard.)  If this is to be done it would
pretty well have to be done by UUNET or the equivalent, so that the tape
mailers can get paid.  This also means that the old problem emerges:  such
a service has to be explicitly bought, rather than just hidden in the
phone bills like a lot of Usenet traffic.  Not impossible -- UUNET service
has to be explicitly bought, and a lot of people have managed that -- but
it limits the audience.
-- 
NASA is to spaceflight as            |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the Post Office is to mail.          | {ihnp4,decvax,uunet!mnetor}!utzoo!henry