[862] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
RE: Some observations about lists
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Primoz Juznic)
Thu Jul 30 12:27:20 1992
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 11:14:17 CDT
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
From: Primoz Juznic <primoz.juznic@uni-lj.ac.mail.YU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L%UHUPVM1.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Subject:
Some observations about lists and Central and Est European countries
> We in the USA have LOW cost access to the net and assume that
> everyone else gets it "free" as well. This is NOT true.
Academic networks should work like that in ALL countries. If they
not, something is wrong there, not in the USA.
> The people I visited are all active on-line through various >
> connections. The thing that is most disturbing to them, and >
> now to me is that since they pay for their phone lines by the >
> minute and in some places pay for messages by the Kb(both to
Z> send and receive).
It depends what kind of connections they are on. Phone lines can
be extremely expensive. And phone cables are usually the simplest
way how the person can communicate from the commodity of his
home. In Slovenia, after certain hour (eight o'clock precisely)
in the evening, reduced phone rate is charged for local calls
(usually the closest computer with modem facilities and academic
network member), and using a modem is then "almost" free. So an
advice for the people in countries who are charged to much, lobby
for such a charging in your country.
> So in many lists there is a lot of noise ,but little in terms
> of signal. The noise created by the participants is annoyin
> to most of us, but is especially annoying to our european
> netters who pay dearly for their on-line time.
Annoying and time consuming surely. But I must point on another
thing which make a certain advantage for us. Participating on
such a (professional) lists gives a certain feeling of what is
going on, and the best possible information we can get about the
novelties and the predominant trends and interests. Even a trivial
thing can be, if summarized properly by the reader himself, an
interesting piece of information.
Primoz Juznic, Central Medical Library, Ljubljana, Slovenia
