michael kleerbaum wrote in a message to Neil Heller:

 mk> Hi Neil,

r>> For all I know, everyone who currently a member of the C Echo is
r>> using Yahoo Groups.
NH> I telnet to a BBS near Houston, Texas.  It seems to me that Fido has
NH> probably given up its own backbone in favor of the Internet.

 mk> Is it so in Z1? In Z2 definitly not. I get this echo directly from
 mk> the german backbone-ring.

The backbone as a structure still exists,  though _transport_ by way of the
internet (and the consequent saving in phone costs) is pretty common,  as
far as I can see.  Not that this should make a difference one way or the
other.  If the internet were to disappear tomorrow the nodelist would allow
for people to keep on communicating,  and after some mild reconfiguration
the backbone would still be in business,  while those who know only the
'net would probably be in real trouble.

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