It started with 1200 bps, unbatched, uncompressed (300 bps for some) in
a day of higher LD charges.
Modems got faster, news got batched, news got compressed, modems got
even faster, LD got even cheaper. Today's uucp with Telebit sends
40 times as much news for the same dollar as the original in 1980.
Since then volume has grown even more, but the new culprit is NNTP.
I expect the number of LD telco links that do a full feed to stay
more level or even reduce. Compression can improve no more than
about 60% in practice. Modems can't get much better on voice lines.
Dynamic feeding can only help non-backbones. We are close to the
physical limit on voice lines. But other things, such as switched
data service and the internet allow that limit to be surpassed.
This is why "imminent death of the net predicted" became so common.
People predicted the net would collapse under its own weight in 82 and
everybody believed it. But each time a new technology saved it.
If there is a gigabit network with bandwidth to spare that is willing
to carry USENET, it has plenty more growth left.
This page last updated on: Jul 1 09:16