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From: bass@dmsd.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news.stargate,net.news.group,net.usenix
Subject: Again ... What is it going to COST?????
Message-ID: <255@dmsd.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Jul-86 14:38:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: dmsd.255
Posted: Thu Jul 10 14:38:56 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jul-86 23:14:20 EDT
Organization: DMS Design, San Luis Obispo Office, CA
Lines: 136
Keywords: The question will not go away ....
Xref: utcs net.news.stargate:255 net.news.group:5948 net.usenix:648
What is stargate going to cost?
A simple question with a difficult answer.
It's difficult for three reasons, all of which haven't been openly discussed
by the proponents of stargate -- but must have come to mind while tring to
figure out how to make a commercial service from usenet.
1) As a commercial service stargate based news traffic WILL cost
MORE money. The fee for most sites will be larger than the current
costs to access news via uucp based usenet. This is a simple deduction
since most sites currently recieve news free from another local site.
2) As a commercial service stargate based news traffic CANNOT be
rebroadcast to ANY OTHER machine or site without paying the fee for
that site as well. This will be difficult to do since the current
community ASSUMES free access and distribution. This is a simple
deduction since the news link is planned to be scrambled AND without
such a restriction the subscriber base will be less than a few
hundred sites.
3) The service is to be accessed via local cable operators who own
the medium AND the vertical retrace time. They will want a cut of the
fees at some point. This is a simple deduction since they have
to make a living too -- and data transmission within the broadcast
industry is becoming big business. IF they take 30-50% of the fee
it WILL double the cost of service.
The current usenet is estimated at about 2,000 sites many of which are
multiple machines within the same organization -- I don't see most of these
sites paying multiple site fees for each machine. Particulary since the
largest segment of these sites are University, Government, and AT&T sites.
Of the current sites, many are operated by private individuals who access
usenet with a local tele call for FREE -- I don't see many of these folks
accessing stargate if the fee is $50/month, and almost none at $100/month.
To install and service 1,000 sites will require a staff of atleast 10 people
to handle sales, customer questions, cable operator questions, decoder shipping
, decoder repair/testing, and general admistrative functions. An estimated
fully burdened facility and staff budget probably exceeds $1,200,000 without
including fees paid for the satelite channel, cable operators, investors,
or other people with their hands out. At this level of service the low end cost
per user is about $1,200,000 / 1,000 * 2 (cable operator markup) = $2,400/yr.
I doubt that 50% of the installed USENET machines will become paying subscribers
in the first year.
Since customer service needs will grow with the userbase I don't expect
much economy of scale until year 2 or 3 where the installed base will become
a cash cow. The real costs are likely to be 3-4 times higher when you
include advertising, startup cash outlays, etc... it will take one big
subsidy to get it started ... I question if it will fly .... and will the
result still be a usenet like service? Why will people want to moderate the
traffic for such a big business for free?? Why should USENIX subsidize it?
Particularly if uucp/arpa/bitnet based usenet stays in tact as a cost free
competitor. I don't favor disbanding the technical communication within
usenet for what is likely to be an expensive, general public, mass marketed
data service. No matter HOW NEAT THE IDEA OF SATELITES SOUND.
To make stargate large enough to break make a profit, it will have to
target larger populations like the IBM, Apple, Atari, and other computer user
populations with a low cost BBS access competitve to Compuserve, etc.
It will take a long time to build the user base AND a lot of money.
With the usenet traffic opened up to such a large general population I question
the quality of the resulting service as a technical forum.
A lot more can be done to improve the cost of the usenet long haul connections,
which WILL LIKELY COST LESS THAN stargate.
1) Upgrade the longhaul traffic to 9600/18000 baud or faster modems. The
cost payback is several months, particularly if they can be purchased
as a block buy with an agressive deal. I would guess that a group
buy could get such modems near/below $1,000 each for a 100+ unit buy.
I would be happy to coordinate such a buy.
2) Upgrade the uucp server to be full duplex --- IE carry traffic in
both directions concurrently -- this will likely improve the
connection costs about 30% for backbones and have little affect
on leaf sites.
3) Implement a better I-have/I-want transmission scheme that is
real-time. This alone could reduce phone traffic in the backbone
by another 10% or more. With a full duplex communication channel this
is really feasible.
4) Negotiate a reduced flatrate DDS nite service AS A GROUP with
one of the long haul carriers -- this could drop the costs another
30% or more. This could be made a big PR deal with agressive bidding.
5) evaluate X.25 major city interconnections with one or more of the
major data carriers based on a flat group rate. This could be even
cheaper than DDS. Again this could be made a big PR deal.
High technology like stargate is neat -- but I think we are just starting
another expensive data service by forging on past the experiment.
I think that USENIX should spend a matching sum to what it has on stargate
to evaluate alternate technologies and their implementation/service costs
before proceeding with stargate. I would be happy to act as a consultant
for such a project.
NOTE: please don't pick at the above loosely laid estimates .... but rather
present a COMPLETE and FEASIBLE estimated BUDGET for stargate service and
costs. ONLY THEN can we start to compare costs.
I am also starting a survey of current transmission costs. Please mail me a
detail of the following for your site(s):
1) Your site name, sites you feed, sites that feed you.
2) Transmission medium for each feed and what the cost of the
medium is ... if the medium is phone service, who is your
carrier, what are their rates, and what were your monthly
phone charges to each site for the last 6 months? What percentage
of the traffic do you/they pay for?
3) What modem service do you currently use (1200/2400/9600?) and
what is the effect service rate ... check SYSLOG and estimate
by dividing bytes by seconds for news batches. Is your feed
currently compressed?
4) Would you upgrade to 9600 DDS service to carry news?
5) How many estimated news readers are at your site.
I'll post a summary to the net.
--
John Bass (DBA:DMS Design)
DMS Design (System Design, Performance and Arch Consultants)
{dual,fortune,polyslo,hpda}!dmsd!bass (805) 541-1575
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Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!seismo!husc6!harvard!panda!genrad!decvax!vortex!lauren
From: lauren@vortex.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news.stargate,net.news.group,net.usenix
Subject: Re: Again ... What is it going to COST?????
Message-ID: <945@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Jul-86 17:05:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: vortex.945
Posted: Sat Jul 12 17:05:02 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jul-86 07:05:35 EDT
References: <255@dmsd.UUCP>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 86
Xref: utcs net.news.stargate:260 net.news.group:5965 net.usenix:655
My initial temptation upon reading John's 8K message where he
attempts to prove that Stargate can't work was to generate a point
by point explanation and refutation. But upon reflection, I realized
that such a message could easily exceed 100K bytes, and frankly, I
don't have the time for that right now. And the result would be
even longer messages bouncing back and forth as the argument went
on and on and on....
It is because of this that we are avoiding trying to carry out our
Stargate work in the "fishbowl" of netnews. We could easily spend
most of our time generating netnews messages to try explain everything
rather than working on the project itself. And much of what
we're working on simply cannot proceed with publication of every
detail at this stage!
So instead, I'll just make the following "simple" statements. I hope
people will excuse me if I don't have the time to publicly answer every
replying article that might result from this one.
Many of the details of Stargate, including organizational, cost,
and some technical issues, are proceeding behind closed doors right now,
of necessity. We're releasing as much information as we can, whenever
we can, and we expect to be able to make some definitive statements
regarding organization and cost issues at the next Usenix conference.
Given the lack of details, it is only natural that some persons might
get false ideas or operate under false assumptions if they speculate
upon what we're trying to accomplish. And that's what's happened
with John--he's speculating, and his message is incredibly full of
false premises and inaccurate information.
His message shows that he does not know what we are doing with
Stargate, what our goals are, how we are organizing, or what
sorts of entities and organizations are involved. Nor does he seem
to understand many of the fundamental problems of Usenet and the critical
fact that faster machine-to-machine netnews transmission, even if FREE,
does not significantly help the systemic problems of the existing network
which is attempting to broadcast articles to a very widespread collection
of points, articles which currently exhibit an ever increasing proportion
of what might be politely termed "extraneous" material.
Frankly, virtually every one of his assumptions was either seriously flawed
or totally incorrect, ranging from his idea of what sorts of services we
plan to provide, to who we would be providing services to and on
what basis, how we would be organized, technical assumptions, cost
assumptions, etc. And as I mentioned above, he also seems to misunderstand
the fundamental structural and operations problems of the existing Usenet.
Now, admittedly, John does not have access to the "inside scoop" concerning
what we're doing with Stargate. It isn't any kind of top secret--but
we have been restricting some details to those persons who are directly
involved during this formative period. Given his lack of information,
it is unfortunate that he chose to set forth inaccurate
assumptions about the project and then proceed to draw inaccurate
conclusions based on those assumptions.
Assume that we are not idiots! This project does not consist only
of a bunch of techies working with high-tech toys. Oh yes, the
toys are there--but a lot more is there too. We are working closely not
only with technical people but with communications and networking business,
cable industry, and other entities who have a broad backround
in understanding the complex issues involved in bringing something like
this to fruition. We also understand the issues surrounding the
current Usenet, its history, growth, and operations. To put it
bluntly, we have a pretty good idea of what we're doing.
This isn't to say we'll definitely succeed, of course. But things
are looking good, and I think we have a very good chance of
providing a range of useful and economical services that will be
of benefit to a vast number of organizations and persons.
As always, I wish to express my appreciation to those of you who
have actively supported this project, and I want to assure you that
the work, both technical and organizational, is proceeding well.
Thanks!
--Lauren--
P.S. As I warned above, I may not (in fact, almost certainly will not)
have the time to respond to every article on this topic that may now
appear in netnews. Please do not consider my silence to be anything
other than a budgeting of my available time! Persons who are
interested in the reality regarding the project, or who are interested
in future participation in the evolving project are of course invited
to contact us directly. Thanks again!
--LW--
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Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!seismo!ll-xn!cit-vax!amdahl!dmsd!bass
From: bass@dmsd.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news.stargate,net.news.group,net.usenix
Subject: Re: Again ... What is it going to COST?????
Message-ID: <257@dmsd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 14-Jul-86 19:28:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: dmsd.257
Posted: Mon Jul 14 19:28:41 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jul-86 06:29:41 EDT
References: <255@dmsd.UUCP> <945@vortex.UUCP>
Organization: DMS Design, San Luis Obispo Office, CA
Lines: 102
Xref: utcs net.news.stargate:263 net.news.group:5980 net.usenix:662
Summary: This doesn't cut it ....
In article <945@vortex.UUCP>, lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes:
>
> Many of the details of Stargate, including organizational, cost,
> and some technical issues, are proceeding behind closed doors right now,
> of necessity. We're releasing as much information as we can, whenever
> we can, and we expect to be able to make some definitive statements
> regarding organization and cost issues at the next Usenix conference.
Lauren ... there is no reason in (*&^(*&^ that the basic outline of
a Comercial Stargate should remain behind closed doors at this point ...
you have been playing with the basic issues and estimates for nearly
more than a year, and approaching two. You should be able to summarize the
proposed organization, it's staffing, and budget within 50%. And you
darn well should be able to give some statement about the subscriber
base demographics and the assumptions behind it. I had substantial questions
about how this might work when you started a year and a half ago and
under presure was quiet eagerly awaiting the soon to be released details
at the next meeting (a year ago). The time to wait is past ....
> Given the lack of details, it is only natural that some persons might
> get false ideas or operate under false assumptions if they speculate
> upon what we're trying to accomplish. And that's what's happened
> with John--he's speculating, and his message is incredibly full of
> false premises and inaccurate information.
You betcha and it's going to get worse ... I don't think I'm working under
false assumptions and we are free to speculate until you make the info
public.
I've been in and around this business more than 15 years and know what
it costs to run an organization to support such a service.
What I DON'T want is to have Stargate give their service away cheaply for
a year to kill the existing net, then say "Opps we (really you) made a mistake,
the prices are going to have to triple to make it pay for itself".
It is VERY important for usenet members to understand budgets, costings,
and proposed subscriber base information prior to thinking about switching
from uucp based phone service to Stargate. You should be able to outline
several possible senerios now based on the deals that various bidding companies
are presenting ... or is this a single source deal???
I have spent many hours in multiplan tossing about possible subscriber
base demographics played against estimated budgets and THE CURRENT
estimated USENET costs --- MY GUESS (and thats the best one can do
given your long silence) is that the TOTAL Cost of news service will
go up by between 3 (no restrictions on multiple sites or local uucp
retransmission) and 10 (every site/machine must pay a fee) times
depending on how the costs get spread and what the real service costs are.
spread.
If the TOTAL cost is the same ... no big deal. If it is going to go up,
then lets make sure that we CHOOSE (not have ramed down us) the proper
replacement for tele/uucp based news service.
>
> His message shows that he does not know what we are doing with
> Stargate, what our goals are, how we are organizing, or what
> sorts of entities and organizations are involved. Nor does he seem
> to understand many of the fundamental problems of Usenet and the critical
> fact that faster machine-to-machine netnews transmission, even if FREE,
> does not significantly help the systemic problems of the existing network
> which is attempting to broadcast articles to a very widespread collection
> of points, articles which currently exhibit an ever increasing proportion
> of what might be politely termed "extraneous" material.
This is a cheap shot ... I do understand the problems ... and much more
objectively than those who can't see past Stargate as the answer ....
I have been involved in the net for many years, watching it grow first
as a technical forum, then as a flaming forum, and then as a social issues
forum. These last two areas are the usenet down fall. Without this
traffic uucp based usenet can return to a cost effective medium by
using existing technology and services.
I have been paying our usenet long distance bills (from SF where our feed is,
to SLO is about 200 miles). I KNOW what usenet costs, I KNOW what the machine
resource requirements are, AND I can see that Stargate is or will be
just another information network like The Source, Compuserve, etc ...
and will be just as expensive ....
Tell us why we should help you start another commercial communications company
to service the usenet community based on closed door discussions and that old,
old line ... Trust me ....
We have for more than a year ... now the clock has run out ...
put the facts on the line ...
What we ask is: Put the facts up NOW and prove us dead wrong if Stargate
REALLY is cheaper ...... OR let the community judge this creation with open
eyes and have the chance NOW to explore other alternatives to a Stargate
monopoly.
This posting is too long already ... I have complaint with nearly
every assertion that Lauren made in his Non-informative reply....
--
John Bass (DBA:DMS Design)
DMS Design (System Design, Performance and Arch Consultants)
{dual,fortune,polyslo,hpda}!dmsd!bass (805) 541-1575
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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!im4u!jsq
From: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Newsgroups: net.news.stargate,net.news.group,net.usenix
Subject: Stargate, costs, and alternative services
Message-ID: <1018@im4u.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 17-Jul-86 16:38:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: im4u.1018
Posted: Thu Jul 17 16:38:51 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Jul-86 04:50:06 EDT
References: <255@dmsd.UUCP> <945@vortex.UUCP> <257@dmsd.UUCP>
Reply-To: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman)
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 85
Xref: watmath net.news.stargate:267 net.news.group:6181 net.usenix:659
This article is intended to address a few mistaken assumptions
that have been posted recently. I am a member of the USENIX
Board and of the Board committee which is working on the Stargate
project, though my opinions do not necessarily reflect those
of the board as a whole.
>Lauren ... there is no reason in (*&^(*&^ that the basic outline of
>a Comercial Stargate should remain behind closed doors at this point ...
>you have been playing with the basic issues and estimates for nearly
>more than a year, and approaching two. You should be able to summarize the
>proposed organization, it's staffing, and budget within 50%. And you
>darn well should be able to give some statement about the subscriber
>base demographics and the assumptions behind it.
This seems to be the most basic misunderstanding: that Lauren,
the Board, or someone has a detailed business plan for Stargate
and is hiding it from the public. Sorry, that's not so.
Lauren is an excellent technical consultant and has done
some amazing work both with the equipment and as a liaison
with outside organizations that have to be involved.
However, his main interests are not in the business end.
One of the main reasons the USENIX Board has taken a direct interest in
the project is in order to produce a business plan. But that did
not happen a year ago, or two years ago: it happened one month ago.
We do not yet know how much the service will cost to the subscriber,
how much investment capital will be required, how many staff will be
needed, etc. And we can't know until the amount of certain key
expenses are settled. Negotiations are in progress to answer these
questions.
As Lauren noted at the USENET BOF in Atlanta, it is hoped that,
if a business plan can be prepared in time, a testing period
will commence in January 1986 and last for several months.
During that period some hosts (exact number as yet undetermined)
would be able to sign up for a small scale test of Stargate.
This test would serve as a market survey and allow setting
subscriber costs appropriately as well as establishing demand.
Meanwhile, we are taking into account the statistics already
collected by others about USENET.
Incidentally, USENIX does not plan to run Stargate indefinitely.
The hope is to have a separate organization take over after the
testing period (or even during). We do not yet know whether
that organization will be non-profit or for-profit. It is
obviously preferable for it to be the former in order to
keep subscriber costs down. However, it may be necessary
to make it for-profit in order to raise capital to start it.
We hope not. But we don't know yet.
Many people seem to believe that Stargate is intended to replace
USENET. This is not true: Stargate is an alternative service.
The only way it would be likely to replace the existing network
were if most USENET participants decided to drop out and become
Stargate subscribers instead. This is conceivable, given a good
enough Stargate service, but is hardly likely to happen immediately.
No one involved with the project has proposed limiting redistribution
of news received by Stargate, to my knowledge. Personally, I don't
believe it could be done, even if it were desirable.
Stargate is not the only possible competitor to USENET. There are
others already and anyone is free to start another at any time. This
does not mean that a competitor has to be exactly like COMPUSERVE,
USENET, or any other existing network in content. Though it should
be noted that the existence of COMPUSERVE has not destroyed USENET.
Nor is Stargate the only network that USENIX is willing to consider
supporting. In response to the desires of the USENIX membership,
a Board member posted a request for proposals to USENET
several months ago. It asked for proposals for improvements of mail or
news service similar to the services currently provided by the UUCP
mail and USENET news networks. I will repost it.
Please be aware that more than a summary of proposed services
or technical means of achieving them will be needed:
a business plan for how to make it work financially is crucial.
For instance, a frequently-overlooked item is staff to do billing.
--
John Quarterman, UUCP: {gatech,harvard,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!jsq
ARPA Internet and CSNET: j...@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU, j...@sally.UTEXAS.EDU
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