[2142] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: low-end users
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (bjp@sura.net)
Tue Jan 28 13:11:24 1992
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 92 13:10:11 -0500
From: bjp@sura.net
To: com-priv@psi.com, rtennant@library.Berkeley.EDU
> All this complaining about the costs of providing service to low-end
> users is getting to me. There are obviously ways to do it -- and
> at a reasonable cost -- because it is being done. CERFNet offers true
> low-end service (and NOT at the ridiculous price of $250/month!)
> in many areas of California -- including the very region that BARRNet
> serves.
>
Please define *WHAT* service(s) CERFnet provides and what the price
is. Is it the dialup service for the travel pc/mac user ie
dialin whereever you are, or is it connect local lans through dialup
links or connect fixed machines through dialup OR of course all of the
above. What is the solution for mail or DNS - do those solutions
require the link to be up all/most of the time to work right. How
easy is it for the *user* to use and maintain... How much time/money
did they invest to build the solution.
> While most of us are sitting around on our hands, crying into our beer,
> folks like Susan Estrada are working to link up public schools, public
> libraries, small businesses, and other "small fry" at a cost they can
> afford. Now if that is not true networking, I don't know what is. Perhaps
> those of you who are having such difficulty figuring out how it can be done
> should ask someone who is doing it.
I have talked to a number of people at various conferences, no one seems
to be sitting around on their hands, they do seem worried about providing
a solution that solves more headaches than it creates. The goal is
to provide a useful connection to the internet for the average person,
a bad experiance here could do far more damage then no experiance (IMHO).
This doesn't mean that no one who is doing dialup is doing it right, some
people seem to be making it work quite well and I would love to benefit
from their experiance. If cerfnet or anyone else wants to make their software
or papers on their dialup solution available I'd love to look at them. In
fact I could probably make any that I get available to the community
as a whole through ftp.
Please keep in mind that all the groups have different goals and purposes,
one thing thats has to be asked is how much does getting dialup working serve
our constituentcy. IE on the list of things we should be doing where
does this rate and how much of our resources should we devote to it.
Can we add 100-500 dialup sites and still provide an adequate level of
services to all of our clients, given the amount of money we generate
from dialup clients.
Brad Passwaters (301)(982-3214)
SURAnet Operations bjp@sura.net
