[9117] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: The Buffalo Free-Net / NYSERNet / PSI problems
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dick St.Peters)
Fri Dec 17 20:31:00 1993
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 93 20:26:48 EST
From: stpeters@spare-parts.crd.ge.com (Dick St.Peters)
To: com-priv@psi.com, tenney@netcom.com
Reply-To: <stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com>
> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1993 16:27:55 -0800
> From: tenney@netcom.com (Glenn S. Tenney)
> At 6:12 PM 12/17/93 -0500, Dick St.Peters wrote:
> >Rich, as was pointed out to me in private (by a different provider),
> >community networks place a larger support load on their provider than
> >is typical of other networks. I don't know if the Buffalo Free-Net
> >qualifies as a 'network' in this sense, but I'm sure that any set of
> >users represents some additional support load. It's not correct to say
> >the cost burden was "none".
>
> Let me see if I understand you, Dick... The Buffalo system is logically a
> single machine (although it could be more than one) with gobs of users;
> these users contact the Buffalo sysadmins for support and are not supposed
> to be contacting PSI since they aren't even supposed to know or care how
> the Buffalo system is connected to the net.
>
> Then please tell me what special load there is... How can the delta cost
> burden to PSI not have been nil????
>
> Do you mean that a single Unix system with 1,000 userids should be
> considered more of a load (cost or any other form) than a machine with one
> user -- if one is paying for the size of the pipe -- ???
Yes I do, and I think that claim will resonate a bit with anyone who
provides support. A large number of users will interact with a large
number of other sites and resources on the net and will encounter a
large number of problems in doing so. Many of these problems will not
be local to the machine(s), so they get passed on.
On the other end are those many other sites expecting to communicate
with the single machine. Even if the problem is local to the machine,
inquiries will come out of the woodwork, especially if the machine's
users begin to provide services - running mailing lists, moderating
newsgroups, running gopher/www servers, etc.
--
Dick St.Peters
GE Corporate R&D, Schenectady, NY stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
