[1993] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: dialog and other commercial services
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kent W. England)
Thu Jan 16 13:07:14 1992
From: "Kent W. England" <kwe2@BBN.COM>
To: weber@world.std.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9201161624.AA27009@world.std.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 92 13:01:51 EDT
>
>I understand that Dialog has announced Internet access. Can someone
>tell me how to access their services?
I have heard tell that Dialog is telling their customers to just "telnet
dialog.com" and when it doesn't work, that their regional is at fault.
It may be that their service provider didn't make it clear that all
those regionals needed to sign agreements before "telnet dialog.com"
would work universally.
For now, the best way to access Dialog is the way you always have. This
may come as a surprise to Dialog and some of their clients. Dialog
connectivity won't work universally across the NSFnet until ANS has
wrangled agreements out of each and every regional, ANS joins the CIX,
or this whole settlements thing is dropped/resolved.
>
>Are there other for profit information services currently
>offering access via the internet?
Well, yes, but not under the same terms and conditions as Dialog. NSF
has granted access to the Internet to some for-profit entities to
provide information services to support R&E over the Internet. They
still charge account fees, of course, but not fees for access via
NSFnet. All the traffic is subject to appropriate use, so the analogy
to Dialog access is not quite apples to apples.
> If so, which ones and how does one access them.
The Internet Resource Guide, available from NNSC, has contributions from
service providers reachable via Internet. ftp to nnsc.nsf.net and look
for the internet resource guide directory. It's big.
We need a resource directory application and protocol to make this easier.
--Kent
