[2169] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Re: low-end users
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Pushpendra Mohta)
Wed Jan 29 04:31:06 1992
From: Pushpendra Mohta <pushp@CERF.NET>
To: CSP1DWD@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (Denis DeLaRoca)
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 92 1:32:16 PST
Cc: rtennant@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU, com-priv@psi.com, staff@CERF.NET
In-Reply-To: <9201281819.AA09682@psi.com>; from "Denis DeLaRoca" at Jan 28, 92 10:17 am
Denis DeLaRoca writes:
>>
>>Well, all this praise for CERFnet I am sure is well deserved and even
>>appreciated... but I disagree that they are the *only* players, and
>>therefore the only model to emulate. The so-called ridiculous price
>>of $250/month unrestricted access offered by a certain vendor is
>>actually quite reasonable when compared with CERFNet's high hourly
>>rates.
>>
>>If you only wanted this access for a few hours a month then
>>the CERFNet rate is good, but if you want continuous access day and
>>night then the $250/month rate is quite attractive. I pointed out
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>this to a CERFnet representative not long ago and the answer was
>>"if you need continuous Internet access then get yourself a 56Kb
>>line"... well, that's a lot of bucks and led me to believe that
>>CERFnet was offering their low-end dial-up service merely as an
>>incentive to get you hooked to buy the more expensive 56Kb dedi-
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>cated-line package. The $250/month vendor, PSI I believe, instead
>>offers a whole range of low-end connectivity solutions and leads
>>me to believe a different philosophy toward accommodating and
>>supporting low-end users.
>>
>>-- Denis DeLaRoca
>> UCLA Office of Academic Computing
I am not aware of the circumstances in which the representative
suggested a 56 Kbps link. However, this is an erroneous impression and
I must correct it.
CERFnet's Dial Up Service, DNC-AYC ( DIAL n' CERF ALL YOU CAN )
is a $250/month flat rate service.
Both our regular hourly priced service and DNC-AYC buy you
terminal service *and* DialUp IP at a modem speed insensitive price.
Irrespective of what option you chose, CERFnet will provide Domain
Name Service and mail storage and forwarding using MX records for
DialUp IP Users. We will provide free a shell account on a machine with
access to the standard gamut of Mail/News/Archie/WAIS clients and POP
servers. We will provide a NNTP feed free to those who want
it. Plus, the CERFnet 800 Hotline will provide the
users any technical assistance they might need any time during
their membership.
In short, we will do everything for the dialup customer that we will
do for the leased line customer, and then some.
While we certainly are not the only game in town, and my personal bias
not withstanding, I will be hard pressed to find a low end service
requirement that will not be served by a CERFnet dialup "connectivity
solution". Drop a note to help@cerf.net for details and pricing
including our latest offerings. Briefly, the options range from host
to net and net to net connectivity, dedicated modem ports and/or leased
lines, or just plain terminal service and access to an Internet
connected host. The pricing depends on who provides what hardware.
Will we like for all our users to have leased lines ? Most certainly.
Do we recommend a leased line for everyone ? Most certainly not. And,
most of our customers seem to know exactly what they want.
Whatever else we might be, the cocaine dealers of networking we are not.
best
--pushpendra
Pushpendra Mohta pushp@cerf.net +1 619 534 5056
CERFNet
p.s I am not sure what prompted this discussion . Some postings
seem to discuss low end services as if they were something new.
CERFnet has offered a low end dial up IP service for over an year and
a half now. So have Alternet and PSI, I believe.
Some messages have requested CERFnet's experiences. I will post them
in a separate message as soon as I have time to pen them down .
