On Sat, 2002-08-17 at 09:15, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> Previously Martin Loschwitz wrote:
> > The IRCNet can run on a free basis because it get's sponsored by ISPs (like
> > Netsurf, Tisacali, NGNet, Edisontel, Stealth and so on) and universities
> > which
> > can produce traffic mostly for free.
> Do you think OPN is paying for its bandwidth at the moment? Do you
> think Debian is?
Actually, I would like to chime in here.
Universities have about three reasons:
A) Public Service. Pride. (Really!)
The state helps us exist. If we provide services that utilise our
excess resources that help people in the state, thats a benefit to all.
B) Excess Resources
Most Universities generally do not have more outbound traffic than
inbound traffic on a usual basis. Much of the traffic is client
machines accessing outside. Outbound traffic in many instances has less
of a range from daytime to nighttime. This resource can be used in day
and night by "Public Services". However, the billing in most cases is
about a 'full duplex' line at X MBps. Tied in with something like the
Internet2 Qbone scavenger service (ip tos 0x20) we can ensure that such
services are only using the 'excess' resources. (some things like p2p
are rated lower than scavenger services with overall rate caps)
C) Cheaper Bandwidth
Discounts, group bargaining (The internet2 'The Quilt' initiative),
peerings, internet2 access,...
I also note that another department where I am still hosts an efnet
server, albiet with I: only access.
[This is my personal opinion and is not necessairly the opinion of my
employer, University of Minnesota Computer Science, or the Regents of
the University of Minnesota. Multiple University of Minnesota
departments provide bandwidth for services such as irc.umn.edu,
ftp.software.umn.edu, saens.debian.org, and umn.dl.sf.net.]
--
Scott Dier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.ringworld.org/
