Re: AARNet charges - IMPORTANT!!

James Wondrasek (jimmy@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au)
Tue, 13 Dec 1994 10:20:02 +1000 (EST)

Lots of people wrote stuff like:

> > I think thats a pretty fair call, I'm quite happy to pay for a movie or to
> > see a band and I even pay for software every now and again!

and

> Yes, but are you happy topay (taking phone calls as an example)
> [stuff deleted]
> every minute of every day for the next year ... do you want to pay that charge?

> > I do not wish to pay a general levy if I'm just using email while Joe Bloggs
> > is on IRC and Mosaic 6 hours a day. Nor would I mind paying a couple of dollars
> > to dowmload the latest Linux version if need be.

Well, for a start, AARNET is going to charge universities around $500 a Gig
for *international* traffic. There will be no charges for national traffic.

I hope the vice-chancellor realises this. I wouldn't be surprised if they
cut all net traffic for a while, then charge for everything, including
Australian traffic.

Doesn't matter if it happens, it will just make things more interesting
at SoCS when everybody has to amuse themselves rather than playing
pachinko with the Web or dribbling over IRC.

When I was a boy we didn't have the net so we used to ...

Jimmy