Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 08:17:58 -0500 (CDT) From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com> To: joe@gaia.gol.com (Joe Kelly) Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org, joe@gaia.gol.com Subject: Re: News provider feeback Message-ID: <199608161317.IAA15007@brasil.moneng.mei.com> In-Reply-To: <joe-9607160844.AA00189803@gaia.gol.com> from "Joe Kelly" at Aug 16, 96 05:44:15 pm
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> Hello,
>
> I'm interested in hearing opinions on which is the best top level news
> provider, sprint, mci, uunet, cable & wire and/or netcom. If they're are
> others please add them in.
>
> Basically I'm interested in getting only a news feed(s) without
> getting a leased line from them. But I've been told by most of the
> above that they won't just sell a newsfeed.
>
> Does anyone know differently and by the way what are the
> reliability/stability of mci and uunet feeds like?
>
> Can please reply to me directly <joe@gol.com> since I'm not on this
> list.
The real players in the news game exchange newsfeeds for free.
If you look at the Usenet paradigm, it is not oriented towards "buying a
newsfeed from someone". It is a flood fill algorithm, which means that you
should be exchanging news with multiple people, feeding them as well as
being fed by them.
Going with a single feed from a single provider has a number of drawbacks:
1) if the provider (or the provider's news server) has a problem, so does
your newsfeed.
2) you only get the articles and groups that the provider receives.
3) the provider's system may be slooooow (some people complain about this
for any one of {UUNet, Sprint, MCI, Netcom, etc}, I don't know.)
4) other misc. drawbacks
If you are receiving feeds from multiple directions, you are much more
likely to be getting timely and complete coverage.
On the other hand, it means that you are potentially feeding other sites.
If you are a well connected site, you will find yourself pushing out lots
more news than you take in... my ratio is about 5:1. However, the
Usenet paradigm was designed in this manner, and I highly recommend that
you follow it.
I recommend a bare minimum of three neighbors with good news feeds.
... JG
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