[6611] in APO-L
Internet access
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ian Douglas Agranat)
Fri Sep 3 20:06:50 1993
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 20:03:24 EDT
Reply-To: Ian Douglas Agranat <ian@agranat.com>
From: Ian Douglas Agranat <ian@agranat.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L%PURCCVM.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu>
Packy,
>GENERAL QUERY:
>
>Do the folks in the National Office have a net connection? If so, who?
>If not, why not? I think an Internet feed to the National Office (with
>FTP access to the latest in Bylaws, Leadership Directories, E-Mail
>submission of T&T articles, etc) would be a useful service to both
>Active and Alumni Brothers alike.
>
>If the National Office does not have the equipment for such a set-up,
>would they be willing to get it? I'm willing to give them a few bucks
>toward the project, and I'm sure there are other Brothers who would, too.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>In LFS, YF,
> -packy
>
That's a good question. I'm sure the answer is cost. A simple
dial-up TCP/IP/SLIP connection to the Internet costs on the order of
$4,000 per year. I know, because my corporation is in fact connected
to the Internet. And that's the kind of connectivity you need for
services such as FTP, etc.
Now, that's not to say that there aren't other ways to get electronic mail
services.
For example, there are several regional public-access Unix systems that offer
accounts on Unix machines that are connected to the Internet that customers
can dial into using a modem. These services usually run a few dollars per
hour of connect time plus monthly charges of twenty some dollars per month.
Unfortunately, most of these services are located in major cities such as
Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, etc. I'm not sure if there is a
convenient public-access Unix/Internet service near the National Office.
(If National was in Boston, they might have an address like apo@world.std.com).
There's also the more expensive commercial services such as America Online,
Compuserve, etc.
Yet another way is to use UUCP by linking the National Office up to a
"friendly" third party that has Internet access. This gives better
connectivity (and would allow for a domain to be created such as APO.ORG),
but requires a larger investment in hardware/software to get up and
running.
Finally, it may be possible for a chapter near the National Office to
coordinate an arrangement between the national office and their computer
center to give the national office an account on their system that they could
access by modem.
Another cost associated with all of the above solutions may involve adding
another phone line which will cost an additional 20-40 per month.
These costs are pretty trivial to a college or university. But, the cost
for APO may be hard to justify in comparison to the benefits at this time.
You can be sure that as technology marches on, we will all have private
electronic mail in our homes. In fact, Boston is just beginning to
experiment with high speed Internet access over cable television channels.
Hmmm... If there is sufficient interest, I suppose I might be persuaded
to provide a home for such services at Agranat.COM (which is presently
the home for Internet access for another non-profit organization where I
provide mail forwarding, finger for information, and automatic information
requests via electronic mail for People Making a Difference (pmd.org)).
However, since I'm only paying 4K/year, my service is limited to a 14.4Kbps
V42bis SLIP connection. (higher grade services for 56Kbps leased line or
10Mbps microwave Ethernet are a bit over my budget). Anybody from the
national office out there who might want to pass this on?
YiLFS,
Ian
-------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Ian Douglas Agranat, President | 1993 Walk for Women's Lives, Co-chair
Agranat Systems, Inc. | Lexington NOW Women in the Media Task Force
ian@Agranat.COM | Waltham Battered Women Support Committee,
Consulting: | Steps to Shelter Committee 1988-1993
o Communications Technology | "Proud to be a Feminist"
o Embedded Real-Time Systems +-----------------------------------------------
o Unix internals | People Making a Difference, Board of Directors
o Device Drivers | Alpha Phi Omega, Section 96 staff
-------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
