[10808] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: How Long to a Multimedia Internet?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (George Herbert)
Thu Mar 10 08:39:22 1994
To: jim@tadpole.com (Jim Thompson)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, gwh@crl.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 09 Mar 1994 18:12:31 +0600."
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 00:07:04 -0800
From: George Herbert <gwh@crl.com>
>> I think the answer hinges on local-loop monopoly pricing: Mosaic won't be a
>> standard internet interface until most people can do a PPP dial-in to their
>> nearest ISP at rates more like $0.01/min than the current $0.10-0.15/min
>> that they are currently faced with in most locales...
>
>Assuming 30 days/month, this is $432.00/month. You can get
>(full-time!) service for about 1/2 that *today*. There are a
>lot of service providers out there at the $0.02/minute mark
>for dial-up.
You can get 56k service for $400-450/month in lots of places.
A large number of providers will do dedicated slip at a third
or so of that (14.4 dialup or you provide a leased line, $150/mo).
Dialups at 2 cents a minute are a little low. Existing SLIP/PPP
software requires enough support that very low hourly rates are
unlikely.
>Not that Mosaic over 14.4k is much fun...
More fun than Lynx at 2400...
I would like to add my two cents on the origional subject. Two things
really need to happen to get GUI type interfaces "standard". One is that
the price of midspeed connections (V.fast class through 56k/64kISDN) needs
to come down, including both the line costs and the hardware costs.
The other is that the user side software has to get monumentally easier
to configure. That may just mean more canned installations or it may
mean newer, simpler software. If you'd ever helped someone who isn't
really even Mac-knowledgeable install a SLIP line, you'd know what the
target audience is...
-george william herbert
not speaking for CRL
