At 10:50 AM 11/23/95, Maryjo Bruce wrote:
>I have Internet mailing lists, and I am interested in starting several
>more.  However, for rea$ons I will not take time to discu$$, I have
>decided to move them to my home and run them myself.
>
>However, I am counfounded by information given to me by local
>hardware/software sellers.  Ever though I tell each salesperson
>the same thing, I get answers that vary from, "You don't need
>anything.  You can use a 286 and free software"  to "Expect to
>spend no less than $25,000."
 
$25k is a lot for mailing list services, unless that includes the cost of
your net connection, in which case it might be reasonable.
 
The real answer to the question "how much does it cost" depends on what you
want to do.  How many lists are we talking about here?  How many
subscribers?  How many posts per day?  What list "features" do you want to
use -- moderation, digests, etc?
 
The answers to these questions will help answer your original question.  If
you have 10 users on a list then you can practically use the filters built
into Eudora to run the list.  If you need a permanent list server then you
need to pay for network bandwidth, which ranges from about $100/month for
dedicated 28.8 SLIP through $1000+/month for T1.  (Those are US prices, of
course).  If you're running a *big* list the cost of the hardware to run it
will pale in comparison to the cost of the network bandwidth you need.
 
There are a number of companies that will let you run a list from their
server(s) for less than it'd cost you to pay for the bandwidth to do it
yourself -- if it's a big list.  Lsoft is one such company... :-)
 
Lee Silverman     [log in to unmask]      http://www.netspace.org/users/lee/
    Someday we're going to look back on all this and tape over it.