[9326] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Cost vs benefit of internet services
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark Costlow)
Wed Dec 29 11:38:06 1993
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 93 22:44:52 MST
From: bbx!kitsune!cheeks@cs.unm.edu (Mark Costlow)
To: com-priv@cs.unm.edu
In article <CIr67I.A0z@kitsune.uucp> you write:
>
>some small notes
>
>TCP/IP service belongs in dedicated equipment (smart terminal
>servers), not at the host. Good servers that do slip and ppp
>run about $75-$100 per port plus the cost of course of your modems.
>
This probably isn't the appropriate list for this question, but I'm not
sure where else to ask it. If someone knows of a network comm server
mailing list, let me know
If you buy a terminal server with 16 ports for about $2200-$2500, which
seems to be the current ballpark figure, that's closer to $140/port.
If you know something I don't about terminal server prices, let me know!
My question is what you do about accounting when you want to provide
SLIP/PPP access via the terminal server (as opposed to using a daemon
on a unix host)? The information I have so far says that the Xylogics
term server with authentication software is considerably more expensive
than $150/port, so how do you do it with a "dumb" term server? If I
understand the literature correctly, you can password-protect ports,
but there's no way to authenticate users (match their user-id up with a
db on a unix host for billing purposes). What's to stop random people
on the street from dialing in to your term server, establishing a SLIP
connection, and wandering off to the net, completely bypassing your
local hosts and your billing facilities?
One alternative to this might be to have users telnet to a unix box and
run a SLIP process there over the telnet connection from the term server
to the unix box. That seems like it would be pretty painful (running
a TCP/IP stack on top of another TCP/IP stack).
Am I missing something? Should I be talking to different vendors?
Mark
--
Mark Costlow
Southwest Cyberport
cheeks@kitsune.abq.nm.us or ...mimbres.cs.unm.edu!bbx!kitsune!cheeks
