CA>> There were many who charged for access to FIDO at the
 CA>> start. There is someone who setup satellite access to
 CA>> FIDO who was charging last I knew. I don't recall his
 CA>> name but I'm sure you know who I am referring to.

 SH> You're thinking of Planet Connect.  And Fidonet nodes in some
 SH> region were required to contribute to Cost Recovery Programs
 SH> (CRPs) to cut the cost of getting and sending the mail.

Planet Connect wasn't charging /for/ fidonet... they were charging for
their service... it just so happened that fidonet was one portion of the
traffic carried by their service... similar to internet access, today...
you pay your ISP for their service, not the internet...

the CRPs enabled folk to carry more without incurring additional cost to
themselves... if there are 20 sysops in one area that all want to carry
certain echomail areas and possibly fileecho areas, it only made sense for
them to group together and spend the $$$ once instead of 20 times (once for
each)... thus the cost came out cheaper for each and they were able to
gather more...

)\/(ark