Hi Neil,

> I never realized that Fido was so pervasive.  Does all this
> infrastructure still exist today?  Who pays for it all?

Yes, the infrastructure I described earlier does exist now.  As far as who
pays for it all, well, some of the backbone distributions have say a HUB or
perhaps a few HUBs that charge a minimal amount to cover operating costs..
most don't charge anything though for their services... and owner of the
equipment donates his system, and resources to the job, and pays for it him
or her self.

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't doubt that at least some of these
systems have expenses that are close to the expenses that I have here.. it
all depends on the type of connection a system has to the internet, and
what's available at that location.

Here in Windor NY, there isn't much of a choice for the type of connection
if you want to run servers (population here is about 1800 people
).  So, I made a 'deal' with the cable company to get 1.5M in both
directions on my cable modem so I could handle all the downlinks that pick
up traffic here ... I know that on a given day the bandwidth I use is
pretty heavy. My system sends out about 50Meg a day to about 60 or 70
downlinks .. for that cable account, I'm charged $500.00 a month.. I allow
Ron, my husband, to use some of the bandwith for the work he does as a
senior designer/developer (he works out of our home) so he pays the bill
and therefore I don't have to charge people for any of this .  The
costs for my POTS node (modem) are pretty cheap - so if the world falls
apart moneywise, I still have that 

:)

Take care,
Janis

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