🚀 go-pugleaf

felix.rauch@limmat.ch (Felix Rauch) writes:

>Marc SCHAEFER (schaefer@alphanet.ch) wrote:
>> Do not forget that Swiss Universities connected to SWITCH now pay for
>> incoming volume --- and IRC is not that negligible.

Indeed it's not. irc.ethz.ch consistently topped the monthly
ETHZ <-> Internet traffic statistic provided by SWITCH for . Go figure.

>Oh, interesting. I guess that means that we won't have internet-access
>for much longer :-(

Hmm, not exactly. Not in the near future anyway. But the raison d'etre
of the whole Internet is so much in flux now, who knows what will be
in another year or so. And true, the brass does start to wonder what the
big yearly bill is all about.

However I'd like to state that so far there hasn't been any
interference whatsoever regarding certain types of internet traffic.
The only reason for the sudden demise of irc.ethz.ch is because the
sysadmin of that machine has left ETHZ and the departement apparently
decided to shut down the IRC server. Consequently we deleted the entry
in the DNS.

It is a fact that the cozy days of the Internet as an academic play-
ground are over for good. The ongoing commercialising of the net does
bring change and I doubt very much that this will benefit Academia in
any way.

Cheers

Stefan
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