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Date:      Fri, 18 Apr 1997 15:19:41 +0100
From:      Robin Melville <robmel@nadt.org.uk>
To:        "Graydon Hoare ()" <admin@multinet.net>, freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: News...
Message-ID:  <1.5.4.32.19970418141941.006dbfd8@wrcmail>

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Dropping news once it has arrived seems to me to beg the question. If you
check the proportion of news that you stash that is actually accessed by
users it turns out to be a small proportion of the total (unless you're a
<huge> ISP).

The rest has occupied great hunks of bandwidth to arrive at your system, and
everybody else's, and is then thrown away at the end of the expiry cycle.
Since news is now such a grotesquely inefficient bandwidth gobbler, it's
surely time to reevaluate the whole system. 

I suppose two possibilities come to mind... 1) I like the idea of the
Pagesat satellite news feed system in that it is effectively multicast and
removes the multiple transmission of the same stuff around the Net; 2) a
smaller number of passive news repositories responding to local ISP cacheing
news server requests -- only the news that's required gets d/l.

Just my two-pennyworth :)
--------------------------------------------------------
Robin Melville, Addiction & Forensic Information Service
Nottingham Alcohol & Drug Team (Extn. 49178)
Vox: +44 (0)115 952 9478  Fax: +44 (0)115 952 9421 
Email: robmel@nadt.org.uk
WWW:   http://www.innotts.co.uk/nadt/
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