[10815] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: How Long to a Multimedia Internet?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Larry Walker)
Thu Mar 10 17:15:57 1994
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 09:58:28 CST
To: com-priv@psi.com
From: walkerl@iscmed.med.ge.com (Larry Walker)
Yes, Karl: I've had the MCSNet application forms on my desk for a month
now. But first I have to get from (414) 833- to (312) 248-. The best rate I
found in Jan was like $0.06/min from Sprint, via a 50% night&weekend
discount from a $0.12.min normal rate. For evening&day rates, I could kick
in their "most called" rate-feature, for a 20% cut off the .23/min day rate
and the .14/min evening rate.
So to use your service from Madison, Wisconsin, costs me at least 1 hr/day
x 30 days/mo x $5/hr nominal avg rate = $150/mo. I'd expect to go 20-30%
over that in a busy month. So I'd spend $150-200/mo on top of MCSNet costs,
and I have to expect a possible 40% rise when the Sprint discount program
ends in July.
So is this an arbitrage opportunity? Do I open a POP in Madison and lease a
56K line to Chicago to connect to MCSNet, then hope I can recoup my
investment before some TCI/Prodigy-over-fiber&cable deal comes to town? I
might be interested, actually, but the average person seeking decent
quality Mosaic-level Internet access probably wouldn't want to go that far.
So inside area codes like 312 and 212 and 202 it's nivana; for us outcast
area codes, the only affordable option is dial-up command-line Unix?
Larry
>
>You can get dial-up, heavy use SLIP and PPP from MCSNet, assuming you're a
>local
>call from a POP, for $30 monthly right now.
>
>This is <personal> service. If you want business class service you can obtain
>that
>from us in the $125-150 range.
>
>We also support 28.8kbps. Mosaic over THAT is almost as nice as an Ethernet
>link,
>as you reach the point where inline graphics take as long to decode as they do
>to
>transfer (this is the crossover for me anyway).
>
>--
>--
>Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.COM) | MCSNet - Full Internet Connectivity (shell,
>Modem: [+1 312 248-0900] | PPP, SLIP and more) in Chicago and 'burbs.
>Voice/FAX: [+1 312 248-8649] | Email "info@mcs.com". MCSNet is a CIX
>member.
