Path: gmdzi!unido!fauern!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!srchtec.searchtech.com!mra
From: m...@searchtech.com (Michael Almond)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.admin
Subject: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar11.143824.24170@searchtech.com>
Date: 11 Mar 91 14:38:24 GMT
Sender: m...@searchtech.com (Michael Almond)
Organization: search technology, inc.
Lines: 15
PSI already mentioned that they are placing the leaf node restrictions only
on the $75/month UUPSI customers. They, PSI, offer a second grade of service,
with a higher price, that allows unrestricted UUPSI access.
Why should this bother anyone? It sounds to me like PSI found that $75
couldn't cover the cost of non-leaf connections and needed to change their
service a little.
Boycott? Sounds a little extreme for a rate change.
--
Michael R. Almond (Georgia Tech Alumnus) m...@srchtec.uucp (registered)
search technology, inc. m...@searchtech.com
4725 peachtree corners cir., suite 200 {uupsi,stiatl}!srchtec!mra
norcross, georgia 30092 (404) 441-1457 (office)
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From: mur...@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.admin
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <2517@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Date: 11 Mar 91 20:37:49 GMT
References: <1991Mar11.143824.24170@searchtech.com>
Followup-To: comp.mail.uucp
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University
Lines: 40
In article <1991Mar11.143824.24...@searchtech.com> m...@searchtech.com (Michael Almond) writes:
>PSI already mentioned that they are placing the leaf node restrictions only
>on the $75/month UUPSI customers. They, PSI, offer a second grade of service,
>with a higher price, that allows unrestricted UUPSI access.
>
>Why should this bother anyone? It sounds to me like PSI found that $75
>couldn't cover the cost of non-leaf connections and needed to change their
>service a little.
Did you miss the post that mentioned how much this other service cost?
First, think about this: In a newsfeed, what's more costly, providing the
downlink-side (the rest of the world) of a full or sizeable feed to a
leaf site or (relatively) small cluster of sites, or providing the
uplink side for all the posts that originate from that site or sites?
Well, lessee, 15 MB/day for the down side, and an average of
(15 MB / 18000 sites <est.> ) * number of sites in this cluster, for the
up side. If this little cluster is, say 100 sites (!) the uplink side is
still well under 1% of the total cost in bandwidth. Mail volume ignored,
since even a high-volume mailing list or two run from this cluster isn't
going to put a dent in these numbers.
Cost for leaf site: $75. Cost for full site: exstimated at a little under $300.
Liability for stuff posted by non-customers is a NON-ISSUE, since it
would be TRIVIAL for PSI to contractually put the burden of liability
on the customer that fed them the "bad stuff". (of course, we might
jump on them for that, too };-> )
I had no opinion on this issue until one person mentioned what the cost for an
unrestricted site was. (BTW, can someone verify the $825-875 quarterly
cost for a full site?) Now I believe that this move is strictly a *marketing*
based decision on the part of PSI.
>Michael R. Almond (Georgia Tech Alumnus) m...@srchtec.uucp (registered)
--
Disclaimer: Yeah, right, like you really believe I run this place.
John R. Murray | "Memory serves
mur...@vsjrm.scri.fsu.edu | wise commanders."
Supercomputer Research Inst.| - Tz'u-hsi, 638 AD
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From: stan...@phoenix.com (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.admin
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <Dccqy4w163w@phoenix.com>
Date: 13 Mar 91 04:15:24 GMT
References: <1991Mar11.143824.24170@searchtech.com>
Organization: Mad Scientist
Lines: 63
m...@searchtech.com (Michael Almond) writes:
> PSI already mentioned that they are placing the leaf node restrictions only
> on the $75/month UUPSI customers. They, PSI, offer a second grade of service
> with a higher price, that allows unrestricted UUPSI access.
The next level of service from PSI is $175/month, and allows dialup
Internet (SLIP) access. This is more than twice the cost of the USENET News
service. The $75/month service was promoted as giving unrestricted uupsi
access.
> Why should this bother anyone? It sounds to me like PSI found that $75
> couldn't cover the cost of non-leaf connections and needed to change their
> service a little.
When I signed up for PSI service, they (and I) went to the effort to
obtain a domain name for this system. What purpose a domain name? It
makes mail from third parties easier to send. Instead of knowing a UUCP
routing, they tack on the domain name and Bingo! the mail shows up here.
Now PSI is saying (to some) that you may neither send nor receive
mail through PSI involving third parties. Now what use is a domain name?
If PSI did not intend to allow third party mail to be sent or recieved
through uupsi, why was getting a domain name one of the features of
their service? Why do they MX, if all they will allow is mail from PSI?
As far as news goes, I think it has already been pointed out that
they will either see it when I feed it upstream, or they will see it
when they feed it back downstream to me. When they feed it downstream to
me, it will be larger (more elements in the Path:), and older, which
makes their service look slower. There has also been a description of
how to get around any automatic news chopping (which will not work at
this site).
> Boycott? Sounds a little extreme for a rate change.
Boycott sounds about right for bait and switch. A user signs up for
the USENET feed. When he decides to carry on the USENET tradition of
providing feeds to others, he is told he needs to buy a different (SLIP)
feed, for more money.
I would suggest to PSI that they examine this decision to enforce
leaf status again. They will be carrying the same news in either case. I
cannot believe that the amount of mail generated by any reasonable node
I feed will make any dent in their capacity. In fact, any node I feed
that starts to make a dent in MY capacity will be advised to talk to
UUNET (would have been PSI, until this came up). On the other hand, the
amount of negative publicity they have gotten (in the very newsgroups
they want to sell) cannot be beneficial to them.
If PSI is really concerned about the load on their systems, perhaps
they would be best served by staunching the flow of unrequested
newsgroups. The junk newsgroup is the most active one, here.
I have not yet received the letter from PSI, so all I am going on is
what has been posted here. I am moderately unhappy with the news
limitation, but can live with it. However, the first piece of mail from
a third party that they drop on the floor will be announced worldwide.
They had best not make the mistake of dropping mail I send to myself
from an outside system, and it will be impossible to tell this mail
from true third party mail.
Path: gmdzi!unido!fauern!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uupsi!jpradley!jpr
From: j...@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar14.052623.26604@jpradley.jpr.com>
Date: 14 Mar 91 05:26:23 GMT
References: <1991Mar11.143824.24170@searchtech.com> <2517@sun13.scri.fsu.edu>
Organization: NYC Public Unix
Lines: 23
In article <2...@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> mur...@sun13.scri.fsu.edu (John Murray) writes:
>I had no opinion on this issue until one person mentioned what the cost for an
>unrestricted site was. (BTW, can someone verify the $825-875 quarterly
>cost for a full site?) Now I believe that this move is strictly a *marketing*
>based decision on the part of PSI.
I don't understand it on marketing grounds. Marty Schoffstall, earlier in
this thread, pointed out how little additional burden was placed on PSI's
facilities by handling mail and netnews on top of their commercial traffic.
Seems to me that if you have something that costs little, and you can sell
it thousands of times for barely any incremental cost for each sale, why
wouldn't the marketing decision be to go for the highest possible volume?
If they were to abandon their restatement of a contract to include terms,
which as Sean just pointed out, were not at all in their original contracts,
let alone in their brochures, and were to allow unimpeded and uncircumcsribed
traffic, not only would they gain lots more new customers (maybe even some of
those who have stated here that they would not now sign up with PSI), but who
knows: some of those "third-party" sites that they now propose to shut out
might grow up to be direct customers of PSI themselves.
Jean-Pierre Radley NYC Public Unix j...@jpradley.jpr.com CIS: 72160,1341
Path: gmdzi!unido!fauern!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!samsung!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!schoff
From: sch...@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar14.170247.10965@uu.psi.com>
Date: 14 Mar 91 17:02:47 GMT
References: <1991Mar11.143824.24170@searchtech.com> <2517@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> <1991Mar14.052623.26604@jpradley.jpr.com>
Organization: Performance Systems International, Inc.
Lines: 54
>I don't understand it on marketing grounds. Marty Schoffstall, earlier in
>this thread, pointed out how little additional burden was placed on PSI's
>facilities by handling mail and netnews on top of their commercial traffic.
>Seems to me that if you have something that costs little, and you can sell
>it thousands of times for barely any incremental cost for each sale, why
>wouldn't the marketing decision be to go for the highest possible volume?
Let me try again. Backbone t1 bandwidth is available, especially
in the evening, that is why we give our SCS+CCS customers NNTP
news feeds for free. What is in short supply (has incremental
cost) are $600 modems and $25/mo POTS lines to feed news through
the normal phoneline/UUCP means.
>
>If they were to abandon their restatement of a contract to include terms,
>which as Sean just pointed out, were not at all in their original contracts,
>let alone in their brochures, and were to allow unimpeded and uncircumcsribed
>traffic, not only would they gain lots more new customers (maybe even some of
>those who have stated here that they would not now sign up with PSI), but who
>knows: some of those "third-party" sites that they now propose to shut out
>might grow up to be direct customers of PSI themselves.
A couple of things here.. PSI goal is not to play to the current
USENET "community" but to bring in a new group of participants who
are interested in the service provision of a reliable accountable
local leaf connection. (But if you want 3rd party you can have that
at a higher price).
In addition we've seen lots of "abuse" of the standards of practice
in things like domain names and other issues with third parties,
for instance people taking a .COM domain of theirs and handing it
out to lots of other "organizations". This is a violation of
the administrative law of the Internet.
And let me take a minute to define "third party" which while well understood
in the Internet world clearly isn't in the UUCP/Mail and USENET world.
UUPSI provides email gateway service to our contracted customers anywhere
they want to go on the Internet, Bitnet, etc. What a third party restiction
represents is someone from "behind" our customer using our bandwith to
get to those same places. To those organization we say get your own
contract/connection to UUPSI.
While I know that these positions are controversial, this was known
in advance, it did not take me by surprise that there would be
a response, unfortunately it was a particurally uniformed response due to the
inaccuracy of the initial postings.
PSI is simply using a different model of how to provide service, this
includes the balancing of fees, contracts, technology, customer
service, and access, it is not particurally evil, it is different.
Marty
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From: pe...@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.admin
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <6LE25CK@taronga.hackercorp.com>
Date: 18 Mar 91 00:53:08 GMT
References: <Dccqy4w163w@phoenix.com>
Organization: A corner of our bedroom
Lines: 11
stan...@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes:
> Now PSI is saying (to some) that you may neither send nor receive
> mail through PSI involving third parties. Now what use is a domain name?
That seems to be a misunderstanding. The intent is that mail should not
be to or from some site on the other side of a subscriber. Perhaps PSI
needs to make this clearer.
--
(pe...@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com)
`-_-'
'U`
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!rpi!uupsi!jpradley!jpr
From: j...@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar18.023911.18805@jpradley.jpr.com>
Date: 18 Mar 91 02:39:11 GMT
References: <2517@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> <1991Mar14.052623.26604@jpradley.jpr.com> <1991Mar14.170247.10965@uu.psi.com>
Organization: NYC Public Unix
Lines: 12
In article <1991Mar14.170247.10...@uu.psi.com> sch...@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall) writes:
>In addition we've seen lots of "abuse" of the standards of practice
>in things like domain names and other issues with third parties,
>for instance people taking a .COM domain of theirs and handing it
>out to lots of other "organizations". This is a violation of
>the administrative law of the Internet.
Could you expand on that a bit? Given some "place.com", what, or who,
is or is not permitted by the "laws of the Internet" to be within that
domain?
Jean-Pierre Radley NYC Public Unix j...@jpradley.jpr.com CIS: 72160,1341
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!bu.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!schoff
From: sch...@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar18.162458.6587@uu.psi.com>
Date: 18 Mar 91 16:24:58 GMT
References: <1991Mar14.052623.26604@jpradley.jpr.com> <1991Mar14.170247.10965@uu.psi.com> <1991Mar18.023911.18805@jpradley.jpr.com>
Organization: Performance Systems International, Inc.
Lines: 31
>
>Could you expand on that a bit? Given some "place.com", what, or who,
>is or is not permitted by the "laws of the Internet" to be within that
>domain?
>
As best I can.......
It is assumed that "place" is a registered corporation, limited partnership,
or some such for-profit entitity regulated inside some jurisdiction of the US
(like a State, commonwealth, or territory). This organization is expected
to generate names under its registered domain "place.com". No other
organization or individual is to generate names with this domain.
But there are exceptions, if you give accounts on your machine to other
people, then you are fine. However it is verboten for other organizations
to use your domain on their machines.
To clear up some of the more interesting service holes there are
other provisions;
What is provided to deal with individual's machines is the .US domain.
Some "organized" non-profit associations appear to be able to use
the .org domain for distributed machine networks, (fidonet appears
to do this), though they should speak for themselves.
Rules have "changed", at one point in time organizations used to
be placed under the .NET domain, that has now stopped.
Marty
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!ukma!rex!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!jpradley!jpr
From: j...@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.admin
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar19.020431.28067@jpradley.jpr.com>
Date: 19 Mar 91 02:04:31 GMT
References: <Dccqy4w163w@phoenix.com> <6LE25CK@taronga.hackercorp.com>
Organization: NYC Public Unix
Lines: 62
In article <6LE2...@taronga.hackercorp.com> pe...@taronga.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>stan...@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes:
>> Now PSI is saying (to some) that you may neither send nor receive
>> mail through PSI involving third parties. Now what use is a domain name?
>
>That seems to be a misunderstanding. The intent is that mail should not
>be to or from some site on the other side of a subscriber. Perhaps PSI
>needs to make this clearer.
They're trying to, but they're confusing me.
When I first subscribed to the $75/mo service, one of the first telephone
conversations they had with me concerned what I wished for a domain name,
which they obtained for me quite efficiently and rapidly.
Part of their objections to my current use of their service involves
what PSI says is inappropriate adherence to my domain.
This site is 'jpradley'; PSI obtained for me the domain "jpr.com".
At one point, when some problems occured with mail messages flowing
through here, I was advised to ask PSI to "wildcard" the MX record they
have for "jpr.com". They said sure, and did so.
Several machines communicate with me, let's call them for the purposes
of the discussion aaa, bbb, ccc, ddd, eee, and fff.
PSI claims that these "other" places can't be in my domain. As a matter
of pure fact, one of aaa-fff is sitting on the same table as "jpradley",
connected to it by an RS232 cable. Another of aaa-fff is the company at
which I work. PSI knows which this one is: while their general mailings
on the new conditions come to my home, where "jpradley" is, John
Eldridge writes to me at my business address. While PSI can't guess
which of aaa-fff is the sitename on the the same desktop, the one which
is my company is no mystery, its sitename is the company's name.
Mail leaving here arrives at recipients with "jpradley.jpr.com"
replaced by "jpradley.uucp". Mail leaving here from _me_ on the other
machine on my desk arrives with "j...@ddd.jpr.com" replaced by
"somewhere!jpradley!ddd!jpr", which is difficult to reply to.
If you don't recall from earlier in this thread, John Eldredge is PSI's
Director of Sales & Marketing. In a letter just now received, he writes:
"[you're paid through 5/8/91, etc.]
"It is also clear that you are including other people's machines under
your domain which is not consistent with the use of the '.com' domain."
After suggesting that I might want to consider switching to the UUPSI
Redistribution Service, at a higher tariff, he continues:
"[re-execute new verion of old contract, or sign the higher-rate
contract, for service beyond 4/15/91, etc.]
"However, if the current domain issue is not cleared up, we may have to
settle this situation sooner."
I don't have here any of the documents which define domains. Simple
question, net-folk:
I've got a domain: which sites may or not be IN my domain, and by what
criteria?
Jean-Pierre Radley NYC Public Unix j...@jpradley.jpr.com CIS: 72160,1341
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!uupsi!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!gvlf3.gvl.unisys.com!lgnp1!phil
From: p...@ls.com (Phil Eschallier)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.admin
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <5060@lgnp1.ls.com>
Date: 19 Mar 91 13:39:39 GMT
References: <Dccqy4w163w@phoenix.com> <6LE25CK@taronga.hackercorp.com> <1991Mar19.020431.28067@jpradley.jpr.com>
Followup-To: comp.mail.uucp
Organization: Lagniappe Systems [Doylestown, PA]
Lines: 58
In article <1991Mar19.020431.28...@jpradley.jpr.com> j...@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) writes:
>
>I don't have here any of the documents which define domains. Simple
>question, net-folk:
>
>I've got a domain: which sites may or not be IN my domain, and by what
>criteria?
>
> Jean-Pierre Radley NYC Public Unix j...@jpradley.jpr.com CIS: 72160,1341
i have been passively reading this thread -- admittedly i am somewhat confused.
about 2 months ago i decided to get information from psi about their uucp
services, hoping for a cheaper way to handle e-mail. in all, the information
i got looked quite appealing and i decided i would go with their service
(the $75/mo service that i gather is the service being discussed here).
being short on time i didn't get to it right away -- but john eldrige did
give me a follow up call, which i figured was convenient.
i told him i was interested in the service and confirmed there were modems
available in the philadelphia area. before we were about to cemment the deal,
it (luckily) came out that we could not receive any mail other than what is
addressed for .ls.com. that was the end of the conversation. who was he
to tell me who/what mail my computers could pass.
i understand theirs is a flat rate service -- if they did not have this
restriction then i could buy a uucp account from psi then distribute e-mail
to the entire philadelphia area -- they would have the expense of maintaining
the equipement and would only take in $75/mo for the area.
if your site is a leaf node, psi sounds like a good way to get connected.
otherwise i would suggest a alternative service -- usually you get what
you pay for.
now i understand that psi is saying you can only send AND receive mail for
your domain -- this may be appropriate for corporation with branches around
the country. but for the leaf node (or one site domain), you are now paying
$75/mo to be connected with yourself -- not exactly my definition of con-
nectivity!!
after much ramblings about my psi confusion -- the question at hand: what
sites can be in a domain??
.ls.com was formed in the days of stargate and at that time it was a fee
of $150/yr (i think ... it has been some time since i thought about stargate)
for a second level domain -- but it was yours. you controlled routing,
site memberships, domain parks ... the works.
i still treat .ls.com in this fasion although there is no fee as i am no
a uunet subsciber. but i'd be interested in knowing what the current rules
are -- and if they have tightened (or been restricted), who's going to
enforce them?? psi?? if so, get a different service.
--
Phil Eschallier | E-Mail to: US Mail to:
| INET: p...@ls.com 248B Union Street
Lagniappe Systems | UUCP: ...!uunet!lgnp1!phil Doylestown, PA 18901
Computer Services | CIS: 71076,1576 VOICE: +1 215 348 9721
Path: gmdzi!unido!fauern!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ceres.physics.uiowa.edu!news.iastate.edu!sharkey!tygra!cat
From: j...@tygra.UUCP (John Palmer)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar23.155949.20164@tygra.UUCP>
Date: 23 Mar 91 15:59:49 GMT
References: <6LE25CK@taronga.hackercorp.com> <1991Mar19.020431.28067@jpradley.jpr.com> <5060@lgnp1.ls.com>
Sender: j...@tygra.UUCP (John Palmer)
Organization: CAT-TALK Conferencing Network, Detroit, MI
Lines: 19
Regarding domain name service: Are there any sites which provide this to
.COM sites (other than UUNET and UUPSI)?? Even a slight fee would be no
problem, just as long as these restrictions didn't apply.
One thing about PSI that is a big drawback is the fact that you cannot get
an IP address with their HOST-DCS service. Each time you dial into one of
their POP's, you get assigned a temporary IP address. The result: No one can
TELNET/FTP to your site. It seems to be a trivial problem for them to
reprogram their routers to know what POP each of their customers is assigned
to and send any queries/connection requests to that POP when a connection is
requested to one of their customers. The worst that can happen is: NOT
RESPONDING - TIMED OUT.
John Palmer
--
CAT-TALK Conferencing System | "Buster Bunny is an abused | E-MAIL:
+1 313 343 0800 (USR HST) | child. Trust me - I'm a | c...@tygra.UUCP
+1 313 343 2925 (TELEBIT PEP) | professional..." | ..sharkey!tygra!
********EIGHT NODES*********** | -- Roger Rabbit | ..cat
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!schoff
From: sch...@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall)
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar25.200324.22500@uu.psi.com>
Organization: Performance Systems International, Inc.
References: <1991Mar19.020431.28067@jpradley.jpr.com> <5060@lgnp1.ls.com> <1991Mar23.155949.20164@tygra.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 20:03:24 GMT
>One thing about PSI that is a big drawback is the fact that you cannot get
>an IP address with their HOST-DCS service. Each time you dial into one of
>their POP's, you get assigned a temporary IP address.
This is ONE of the services that we offer, other services such
as CCS and SCS do not have this "limitation".
>The result: No one can
>TELNET/FTP to your site. It seems to be a trivial problem for them to
>reprogram their routers to know what POP each of their customers is assigned
>to and send any queries/connection requests to that POP when a connection is
>requested to one of their customers. The worst that can happen is: NOT
>RESPONDING - TIMED OUT.
I'm not sure if cisco/proteon/wellfleet/nsc would agree that it is
trivial to reprogram their routers; however, on-demand Internet
access is not trivial either.
There are questions such as
(1) is "on-demand" address assignment a good thing? From looking
at the PPP spec and some implementations it appears that the answer
is yes. It is probably a good thing from the perspective of the
Internet Address space also, right now the only granularity of long
term official address assignment is 8 bits (a whole class C network
number).
(2) is "on-demand" client-only access to the Internet useful,
(HOST-DCS)? I think
the answer is yes. There appear to be 100,000's of Internet
hosts which are client-only today. With Intercon/FTPSoftware/etc
support POP3 et al of the standard uses (ftp/telnet/mail) are
provided.
(3) is there going to be changes and evolution in the future?
Absolutely, the Internet, internetworking products, etc
are rapidly evolving.
Marty
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!AMillar
From: AMil...@cup.portal.com (Alan DI Millar)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <40593@cup.portal.com>
Date: 27 Mar 91 01:48:18 GMT
References: <1991Mar19.020431.28067@jpradley.jpr.com> <5060@lgnp1.ls.com>
<1991Mar23.155949.20164@tygra.UUCP> <1991Mar25.200324.22500@uu.psi.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 19
>>The result: No one can
>>TELNET/FTP to your site. It seems to be a trivial problem for them to
>>reprogram their routers to know what POP each of their customers is assigned
>>to and send any queries/connection requests to that POP when a connection is
>>requested to one of their customers. The worst that can happen is: NOT
>>RESPONDING - TIMED OUT.
>
>I'm not sure if cisco/proteon/wellfleet/nsc would agree that it is
>trivial to reprogram their routers; however, on-demand Internet
>access is not trivial either.
Funny, I though trivial on-demand Internet access was the whole point
of the dial-up IP code I recently saw on Usenet. The Telebit
NetBlazer seems to think it's pretty trivial... (For those who haven't
seen it, the NetBlazer is a dial-up IP router. It uses dial-up modems
to establish IP connections using SLIP or PPP. I'm not affiliated
with Telebit; I just think it's a neat product)
- Alan Millar
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!schoff
From: sch...@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall)
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <1991Mar27.073123.20863@uu.psi.com>
Organization: Performance Systems International, Inc.
References: <1991Mar23.155949.20164@tygra.UUCP> <1991Mar25.200324.22500@uu.psi.com> <40593@cup.portal.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 07:31:23 GMT
>Funny, I though trivial on-demand Internet access was the whole point
>of the dial-up IP code I recently saw on Usenet. The Telebit
>NetBlazer seems to think it's pretty trivial... (For those who haven't
>seen it, the NetBlazer is a dial-up IP router. It uses dial-up modems
>to establish IP connections using SLIP or PPP. I'm not affiliated
>with Telebit; I just think it's a neat product)
>
And PSINet has supported a form of dialup Internet access since the
Fall of 1990 for a flat fee....
But let's think about providing this as a service:
(1) who makes the phone calls? If it is the customer, then everything
is fine for the service provider vis a vis billing the flat fee, but
what about the site inside the leased line Internet who wants to
reach that customer, he's out of luck. If they both make the phone
calls then the service provider has to keep track of how many message
units are consumed (hopefully through SNMP stats) multiply by the
appropriate amount and bill it in addition to the fixed amount.
(2) How would you like to configure the DNS? Is the primary at
the customer site or inside the leased line Internet.
(3) Where does email go for the customer site when it isn't connected?
If the service provider MX's for that site, how does it make final
delivery, UUCP? (too UNIX centric), POP3 (too individual centric),
SMTP with TURN (not readily available), SMTP without TURN (you
have to hope to match the window of availability), MMDF/TCP?
In reality you want to do whatever the customer wants, so you have
a lot of variability between customers.
I believe that dialup/switched/on-demand Internet access is a great
thing, we have over 100 customers who do this right now; however,
it is not trivial (for the reasons that I've outlined, and many
reasons that I haven't), and more importantly it is pointing out
some additional work that needs to be done in the Internet suite
to make it extrememly useful to the users.
Marty
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