Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-vax!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!battan
From: bat...@tc.fluke.COM (Jim Battan)
Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: UUNET access opinions gathered
Message-ID: <3138@fluke.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 88 21:58:41 GMT
References: <3046@fluke.COM>
Sender: n...@tc.fluke.COM
Lines: 317
Keywords: UUNET reliability accessibility
Summary: Responses summarized
I promised a summary of responses I received about UUNET availability.
Here it is. First, my question:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Fluke would like to put our newly-acquired TrailBlazers to good use by
>hooking them up to UUNET for UUCP and News transfer. However, a few
>months ago we saw some articles posted in various newsgroups about the
>clogged lines and unreliable feeds they were getting from UUNET, particularly
>during the night and through Tymnet.
>
>What is your current opinion about UUNET access and reliability?
>Is the access better through the 800 or local number?
>(Does Tymnet charge a per-packet or similar tariff?)
>Is it possible to get a full news feed during the midnight-8AM times?
>
>Mail me your opinions and comments; I'll post a summary (I promise) if I
>get enough responses.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've cross-posted this response to comp.mail.uucp since it may be of
interest to those types of readers too.
Here are the responses (I put a few comments at the end):
===== cut here, if you must ======
From uw-beaver!ames!ll-xn!ames!lll-lcc!lll-winken!uunet!vsi!friedl Fri Mar 4 08:18:50 1988
We have been on UUNET for a month or so and do our work
through Tymnet or the 800 service (no 'Blazers yet...). The
machine calls a couple of times in the evening when I send mail
and we have had very high availability. We are quite happy
with the service.
============================================================================
From sun!pyramid!zorch!scott Fri Mar 4 09:46:04 1988
At the moment, everything is hunky-dory. I access uunet at 1200 through
Tymnet. There were some *serious* problems in November and December that
related to Tymnet throughput going up much faster than Rick Adams had
anticipated and the 19.2Kbps lines from Tymnet were saturated. I have also
heard that there were some addditional problems with Sequent's X.25 support.
I also had some access problems about 2-3 weeks ago; the Tymnet link wasn't
working even though I could dial the 800 number and see that the system was
still up.
>Is the access better through the 800 or local number?
Looked about the same; unfortunately, my 1200 baud modem and uunet's TBs
on those lines don't sync up completely and so I can't use those lines.
>(Does Tymnet charge a per-packet or similar tariff?)
Uunet access through Tymnet costs $4/hr, off-peak hours. That fee seems to
cover both the uunet part and the Tymnet part.
============================================================================
From d...@seismo.CSS.GOV Fri Mar 4 16:49:28 1988
being one of the volunteers for uunet, i'm not an unbiased source of
information :-) but i should mention that you are not charged by the
packet for the tymnet lines. instead you are charged by time according
to the following rates
Charge per Tymnet Connect Hour
Density Prime Time Non-Prime Time
High $25.00 $4.00
Medium $28.00 $4.00
Low $32.00 $4.00
Charge per Direct Connect Hour
Type Daytime Evening Night
Incoming 800 $16.00 $12.00 $10.00
Outgoing WATS $17.00 $12.00 $ 8.00
Incoming Local $ 1.50 $ 1.50 $ 1.50
Outgoing Local $ 3.00 $ 3.00 $ 3.00
also, our tymnet connection has been increased from a 19.2k line to 56k
and we now have seven normal (local or long distance) phone lines and
six 800 numbers. all the modems are trailblazers.
============================================================================
From r...@seismo.CSS.GOV Fri Mar 4 16:49:45 1988
Well, I'll give you some biased information....
Today we added 6 additional 800 numbers (total of 8) and 2
additional "local" numbers (total of 8). Last month we
upgraded the Tymnet connection to 56kbps and thats helped a lot.
There is no packet charge applied anywhere. Everything is by connect hour.
You get one bill from uunet no matter what you do. (i.e. tymnet bills
us and we bill you). So, the issue of tymnet charging not important.
we charge you $4 per connect hour and pay tymnet most of that
to cover the packet charges, etc.
Note that the trailblazers will not work with tymnet. You either have
to call our 800 number or call direct.
If you hear anything that sounds really bad, please let me know as
we probably have fixed that an dit is no longer a problem.
(At least I do not currently know of any major problems)
============================================================================
From uw-beaver!ames!ll-xn!ames!lll-lcc!lll-winken!uunet!pcrat!rick Mon Mar 7 04:32:42 1988
It was bad for awhile there. There was some problem with the
sequent -- 56kbit -- X.25 pad -- tymnet
hookup, and the machine kept crashing. But it's been pretty solid
lately. I switched to the 'Blazer two months ago, and used the
800 number for awhile. It, too became clogged, but they've just
added 6 more lines, and beefed up the disk.
After I realized that the $10/hour for the 800 number was (slightly) more
expensive than just paying the (AT&T) L.D. myself and only sending
them the $1.50 per hour for local access, that's what I've been
using. Your mileage may vary. I don't get a full feed, but my
bills are now about $45/month ($30 of which is the subscriber fee).
I also pay AT&T $84/month on top of that.
============================================================================
From da...@e.ms.uky.edu Sun Mar 6 17:42:52 1988
weeell... we no longer get news from uunet so maybe my answer won't be
any help to you.
however ... we've had no problem with accessing uunet, but then we've been
calling the 800 number.
tymnet doesn't charge us directly, instead they charge uunet some per packet
fee and uunet figures out an hourly charge to bill us.
the uunet machine has had quite a bit of upgrading recently. more memory,
more processors, more disk space, more serial ports.
the only thing that I'm not happy about is the fact that the bills don't
include any sort of detailed breakdown about what the charges cover.
they should (at the very least) say what the billing period is, but they
doesn't do even do that.
============================================================================
From w3vh!ro...@uunet.UU.NET Sat Mar 5 13:55:42 1988
To: uunet!tc.fluke.COM!bat...@uunet.UU.NET
[[ I included that To: line for interest. It's wrong...-Jim ]]
UUNET has had some growing pains, but the problems you saw referred to
earlier have now been fixed. The underlying "problem" was that the demand
for the service was greater than they had anticipated, and they've had
to play catchup to get the hardware upgraded along with demand. They
just got a bunch more 800 lines, so that route should be no problem.
Tymnet is $4/hr off-peak, and it is certainly possible to get your full
feed between midnight and 8AM. (of course, with Tymnet, you're limited to
the speed of the Tymnet node, either 1200 or 2400 baud, so your Trailblazer
wouldn't do you much good.) I use the direct number as a fallback when
*both* Tymnet and the 800 number are hosed for some reason. That has
been very rare of late. Normally, the 800 numbers should be every bit as
good as the direct number, but with a Trailblazer, you might find it
cost-effective to call the direct number anyway. A friend who lived in
Pennsylvania did a careful cost analysis and came to that conclusion.
============================================================================
From mtxinu!psivax!rabbit Fri Mar 4 22:59:16 1988
From: mtxinu!rab...@psivax.psi.siemens.COM
We call UUNET via 1200 baud modems over Tymnet. Things have been ok
lately. They were worse before but better now. I think we're running
a little under normal 1200 baud transfer rates. But if you go with
TB I'm sure these things won't matter. I think we've been able to
get in every nite (we poll them a few times each nite) and pick up
our news. We don't have TB's so I can't comment on that.
============================================================================
From sun!pyramid!pyramid.UUCP!csg Fri Mar 4 17:11:44 1988
UUNET did have some reliability problems. These have mostly been fixed. Even
at its worst, though, we thought the service was as least as good as that
provided by any of our netnews neighbors.
If you use a TrailBlazer, you don't use Tymnet. Much cheaper to call directly.
You pay your own phone bill ($8/hour), and UUNet bills you at $1.50/hr. At the
speed of a TrailBlazer, that's a lot cheaper than Tymnet's $4/hr. The machine
does get pretty busy after midnight, but there's still plenty of bandwidth
left.
============================================================================
From wa3wbu!j...@uunet.UU.NET Tue Mar 8 00:11:20 1988
To: uunet!tc.fluke.COM!bat...@uunet.UU.NET
I have been using UUNET since last September. Over that time there had
been occasional problems with the Tynmet nodes. UUNET charges $4.00 hour
for the 1200 baud Tymnet access. I am going in with my Trailblazer on their
direct line and it costs $1.50/hr. Their 1-800 number I beleive runs in the
$10/hour range. Overall, conditions have greatly improved over the
last three months on UUNET. They have updated their communications
processors significantly and have also just added 560MB of disk. I rarely
get a busy signal on the direct line and enjoy very good throughput. I have
found them to be a very viable link overall and would recommend them
to anyone seeking a link to USENET.
============================================================================
From mfci!bron...@uunet.UU.NET Tue Mar 8 12:18:36 1988
uunet seems to be getting better w/age. Over the weekend we
connected with them and got 2-3M/hour.
Many of their problems were with the 2400 Tymenet. If you ask me
it should only be used for international calls.
I love the trailblazers. (yes they are a bit flakely, but maybe the
release 4.0 of the firmware will help)
============================================================================
From ssc-vax!shuksan!tahoma!hrsw2!bakken Thu Mar 10 22:30:42 1988
I was at the UUNET/USENET BOF at the Dallas USENIX a few weeks ago
and I've included my notes from it (as well as from the CSNET BOF,
in case you're interested). We are going to get the Trailblazers up
on a few of our sites and connect with uunet. I may even get a
trailblazer and uunet connection at home (at my own expense - thats
how highly I think of the modems). Please note that we don't have
them in yet and we are not world class communications or USENET
gurus. Please feel free to call me if you have any questions.
Dave Bakken
uw-beaver!apcisea!tahoma!hrsw2!bakken
(206) 277-2751
-The meeting was led by Rick Adams of the Center for Seismic Studies
in Arlington, Virginia. Rick works on UUNET after his own job and
in lieu of sleep.
-UUNET is no longer an experiment for USENIX - they are now gearing up
for a permanent setup. This will include hiring 2 1/2 people and
finding a site of their own in the next year or two. UUNET would have
been self-sustaining in a few months but with these new plans
the self-substinence will be pushed back to 1989. UUNET has about
250 subscribers now.
-The sequent has been crashing a lot but that seems to have been ironed
out in the last month or so.
-People are having throughput problems with TYMENET and are getting
about 200 cps on "2400 baud". TYMENET insists UUNET has a 56K baud line
but Rick Adams says they are positive it is 19.2K baud because they
get much less than 19.2 bps rather than the ~30Kbps you would expect
with a 56K baud line.
-The Trailblazer setup has been a "rousing success". They are getting
5500-13000 bps and even 4000-5000 from Chile (Rick Adams was amazed
that they got anything). UUNET has 2 800 lines with Trailblazer
Plusses and will add 6 more as soon as ATT installs the lines. (A side
note - Telebit extended their UUCP site 50% discount (~$670 cost) until the
end of March. See me or mail telebit!modems for info. I talked to the
Telebit folks at UniForum and they said they doubted it would be sold
mail order or any other discount in the near future because it is a
high performance, specialized communications tool and not a commodity
item like the 2400 baud modems you can get by mail order for <$200.
Thus this offer, which is not likely to be extended again, is the last
time the price of a Trailblazer Plus will be below $1000 for at least
12-18 months, in my opinion.). The Trailblazer Plus looks like it is sending
faster than it is receiving because it has a large buffer.
-UUNET has about 125M of source on line but is getting in a 600M disk
RSN. It will also have the facesaver data on it (256x256x1 bit/person).
-It takes 25 [sic???] hours (@2400 TYMENET) to get the complete X
distribution from UUNET. This is much faster and cheaper [sic??]
than the 6 weeks and $150 from MIT.
-Don't use * in transfers.
-MMP modems have not been working well with auto-reliable and UUCP.
-I asked how often most UUNET connections called it during bankers
hours. Rich said that varies quite a bit, with some minimizing costs
and only taking mail during the evening and others haveing UUNET call
them when they have mail in. I was very interested in this because if
most or many of the sites would UUNET call them when mail was in you
would have a very good chance of sending email within North America (especially
the bigger cities and universities) and getting a reply back during the
same work day.
-CSNET and BITNET can be reached by UUNET (no details mentioned).
-Version 3.0 of the B news should be out in a few months. vnews will
have kill files and other more powerful features.
-Henry Spencer said the C version of news will be out in a few months.
The Alpha version is pretty solid but you have to poke around to install
it because the documentation is sparse. They did not bother doing the
readers because the B 3.0 is fine.
============================================================================
Well, that's it. Thanks for the responses!
If you want to know the answer to the $64 question, yes, we will probably
be subscribing. Now if we can only decide which other newsgroups to get.
Anyone have comments on the quality and subject matter of the non-backbone
groups? Are any of the groups not suitable for a corporate environment
(alt.drugs comes to mind)?
--
Jim Battan Domain: bat...@tc.fluke.COM Voice: +1 206 356 6469
UUCP: {uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,sun}!fluke!battan
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rick
From: r...@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams)
Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: UUNET access opinions gathered
Message-ID: <44267@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: 17 Mar 88 06:28:32 GMT
References: <3046@fluke.COM> <3138@fluke.COM>
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 30
Keywords: UUNET reliability accessibility
Summary: minor clarifcation on billing
> the only thing that I'm not happy about is the fact that the bills don't
> include any sort of detailed breakdown about what the charges cover.
> they should (at the very least) say what the billing period is, but they
> doesn't do even do that.
It is correct that the bills do not come in detail (i.e. per call).
This is a deficiency that will be corrected "in the future". The raw
data exists, but it must be (painfully...) turned into something
a normal human can understand. Upon request (e.g. billing disputes) I
can and have produced the call detail. It is not automated right now.
I don't understand the second part. The current bill says:
INVOICE ... For UUNET service for Month, Year for Site SITE.
Yes the billing is slightly screwed up. This months project is to
totally reconcile the checks received with the invoices sent and
see exactly where we stand. This involves going through about 22 inches
of paper one by one. It hasn't help that the Berkeley Post office
LOST the entire January billing (i.e. we gave them a mailbag full
of letters and none of the 250 showed up at the destination within
a month). We remailed them a few days ago.
Lastly, I think Tymnet has finally gotten the 56kbps handling an
aggregate throughput of over 20 kbps. Its hard to tell, as I can't
tell when its working, I can only tell when its broken. (Right now
I can't find anyting wrong with it, but we are only doing 15-20
simultaneous X.25 connections. The real test is 25-35.)
---rick
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