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There is one point that is overlooked in all the 'info hiway' talk that
is critically important.  The use of the hiway is determined by file
size (that is how the capacity is limited, so many bytes per day) so
presumably the charging will be proportionate to file size.  A post to
this list is 1-4000 bytes, a book is about .5-3,000,000 bytes.  You probably
would have a hard time reading an entire CDROM, 650M bytes.  And yet, 10
minutes of full motion video (like a short short) is about 600M bytes.
So you can see that what you send (in terms of format) is more important
than what you send (in terms of meaning or content).  Libraries will surely
be able to send and receive character data (posts like these, up to book
length) but may decide not to expend resources on electronic transmission
of more data intensive items.  I do not see this division into affordable
versus too costly as inappropriate.   In fact, it seems like good husbandry
of public funds to me.
 
Dave Gomberg, role model for those who don't ask much in their fantasy lives.
GOMBERG@UCSFVM  Internet node UCSFVM.UCSF.EDU             fax-> (415)731-7797