[694] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Cheap individual access to the net
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Daniel P Dern)
Wed May 15 14:13:21 1991
Date: Wed, 15 May 91 13:53:18 -0400
From: ddern@world.std.com (Daniel P Dern)
To: com-priv@psi.com
Cc: ddern@world.std.com
This is a slight detour to the cosmic privitization question,
but worth noting: If the type of access to the Internet you
mostly want is e-mail, mailing lists, and newsgroups, then
you don't even need NNTP, TCP/IP, or even a Unix machine...
as long as you have at least a PC (or terminal) and a modem --
and an account on your friendly local Public Access Unix System.
When I stopped working at an Internet-connected company, one of
my first responses was, "Dang, I'm off the net."
Public access Unix hosts offer us individuals (and companies and
whatnot) a cheap, easy solution. As one of the 600+ people with
accounts on the World, run by Software Tool and Die, I have an
account on a machine on the net. (AlterNet, linked now to NEARnet,
and soon to be CIXed to PSInet and CERFnet, I gather.) I crank up
the terminal emulation program on my PC at home (or from my laptop,
when travelling), dial up, and it's that simple. Cost: about a
buck an hour for connect time (for my host); the phone call is
local (although I have done long-distance when on the road, and
there are other options). I've been running at 2400 baud, and am
ready to move up to a 9600 modem, so I get can more reading done
in the same time.
The World, Portal, Well and others are the host-level equivalent of
AlterNet, PSInet, etc -- commercial, for profit services anybody with
a credit card or checkbook can make use of, without worrying about the
"am I allowed to use this" issue we often worry about for guest accounts
at other people's institutions.
I suppose I _could_ get ambitious, and set up uucp in my PC, and become
a leaf on a twig on a branch. For my purposes, this works well enough.
There's a regularly updated list of public access Unix systems, available
through usenet groups and other sources.
And this is an extension of the privitization and commercialization
effort -- it makes the network community available to a far lower-scale
class of users, and to individuals regardless of affiliation, or lack of.
Daniel Dern
ddern@world.std.com
