Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site amdahl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!amdcad!amdahl!ems
From: ems@amdahl.UUCP (ems)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: The cost of a message
Message-ID: <2501@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Jan-86 13:23:28 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.2501
Posted: Tue Jan 7 13:23:28 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 8-Jan-86 20:23:10 EST
Organization: Circle C Shellfish Ranch, Shores-of-the-Pacific, Ca
Lines: 22
Keywords: Dollars, cost, message, phones
With all this talk of blowing away various news groups and
the great cost of phone calls for the backbone sites, a
question has come to mind.
How much does it cost to send an average/typical message
over the whole net?
As a 'user' of the net, I think some about the cost; but
I have no magnetude to hang onto. Just a vague feeling
that this must cost some. It would be very helpful to
me, at least, to know how much I was spending for a typical
30 line posting. If I knew that the total cost for all
sites for disk space and phone calls was, say, $24, for
some hopeless blather; I would tend not to spend it...
(If it was $1.98 though ... :-)
Does this information exist? If so, could it be advertised in
the other groups? Thanks!
--
E. Michael Smith ...!{hplabs,ihnp4,amd,nsc}!amdahl!ems
This is the obligatory disclaimer of everything.
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version VT1.00C 11/1/84; site vortex.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!vortex!lauren
From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: The cost of a message
Message-ID: <871@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 15:07:38 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.871
Posted: Wed Jan 8 15:07:38 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jan-86 06:26:46 EST
References: <2501@amdahl.UUCP>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 6
Some preliminary stats I worked out once (which are only a very
rough approximation, for obvious reasons) indicated that the cost
of a one screen message, distributed as "netnews" to all sites,
probably cost at LEAST 100's of dollars.
--Lauren--
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site glacier.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!
decwrl!glacier!reid
From: re...@glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: The cost of a message
Message-ID: <2963@glacier.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 9-Jan-86 01:33:20 EST
Article-I.D.: glacier.2963
Posted: Thu Jan 9 01:33:20 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jan-86 23:34:11 EST
References: <2501@amdahl.UUCP> <871@vortex.UUCP>
Reply-To: reid@glacier.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Organization: Stanford University, Computer Systems Lab
Lines: 51
Here are two independent computations of the cost of a a news message. They
yield $27 per message and $32 per message, respectively (for a
1000-character message). The first computation is a forward computation
based on the price of telephone calls and the connectivity of the network;
the second computation is a backward computation based on Glacier's monthly
phone bills and the amount of monthly traffic that we see.
Forward computation: assume that...
N=4000 Number of nodes on USENET
C=1.5 Average redundant connectivity of a USENET node
K=0.10 $US per minute for long-distance telephone time
L=0.02 $US per minute for local telephone time
S=80 Characters per second average throughput
P=1000 characters in a news message
Optimistic computation (all telephone calls local, no redundant
connectivity). In this case there will be about N phone calls for N hosts;
the cost of sending a message to those N hosts is N*L*P/(60*S), which is
4000*0.02*1000/(60*80) = $16.66 per 1000-character message.
Pessimistic computation (all telephone calls long-distance; 50% redundant
connectivity). This is N*C*K*P/(60*S), which is 4000*0.10*1000*1.5/(60*80),
or $125 per 1000-character message.
I think that a reasonable model--perhaps right to within a factor of 3--is
that 10% of the phone calls are long distance, that there is very little
local redundancy but about a factor of 1.5 long-distance redundancy (most of
the backbone hosts have more than one long-distance feed path). This gives
us the hybrid formula
COST = 0.9*(4000*0.02*1000/(60*80)) + 0.1*4000*0.10*1000*1.5/(60*80)
or COST = 14.94 + 12.50 = $27 for a 1000-character message.
Backward computation:
Glacier's phone bills for USENET are about $500/month and the monthly
traffic is about 20 megabytes. That means that we are paying $500/20000 per
1000 characters, which is about 2 cents a message. If every node on the net
pays a comparable amount, then the cost of that message is 4000*0.02 or
$80/message. Maybe only 10% of the sites on the net have phone bills as
large as $500/month--say the average monthly phone bill for a USENET site
is only $200. That would result in a figure of $32 per 1000/character
message.
P.S: this message is 2500 characters as it leaves my terminal. That means it
is costing about $100. I'd better shut up.
--
Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid
Stanford re...@SU-Glacier.ARPA
Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version VT1.00C 11/1/84; site vortex.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!
bellcore!vortex!lauren
From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: The cost of a message
Message-ID: <872@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Jan-86 19:38:30 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.872
Posted: Sun Jan 12 19:38:30 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jan-86 00:58:23 EST
References: <1063@ecsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 6
Golly. That's an interesting thought. What does it cost in terms
of people time/salary time for the various non-technical groups
that people read and post to? I'm not saying that they shouldn't--
just that the figures might be rather "alarming" in aggregrate.
--Lauren--
|