[aprssig] Throttleing EchoLink Objects

[Steve Dimse]

Before we talk about throttling ideas, why don't we decide how much  
bandwidth is acceptable so you have a target to aim for. The first  
issue is how useful is this, really?

If this is incredibly useful for a handful of people, bandwidth > 1%  
may be worthwhile. Same if it is a little useful to a lot of users.  
Even if it is useful to no one except in emergencies I could buy it.

BUT....

It certain is not useful to a lot of people. Home users are definitely  
better served by the Echolink online web pages. APRS users in their  
home area know, or can easily find out, the echolink stations in their  
area. Don't even bother with trackers.

Emergencies? Well, if the internet is unavailable this proposed data  
is worthless.

So that only leaves people traveling outside their home area, without  
mobile internet, that want to use an echolink node. In my estimation  
this is a vanishingly small number, one that will continue to shrink  
every year. Furthermore, there is a real Achilles heel to this...  
local IGate operators MUST put the callsigns of the local nodes in  
their blessed list. Without a way to automatically IGate all of this  
data out to the local RF networks where it is needed, even the very  
small numbers of people that might benefit will not, and could not,  
depend on this data.

I'll listen to competing arguments, but to me there is nothing in this  
data that justifies more than a 1% increase.

Steve K4HG