dc@max.berkeley.edu (Dave Cottingham) (01/16/91)
It sure would be great if my PC at home were on the internet. I'm sure this must be possible, since there are plenty of smallish businesses on the internet. However, a perusal of the documents at nic.ddn.mil shows only how to launch a new network, which requires divine intervention from a government agency, and is definitely of a grander scale than what I have in mind. I'm hoping that someone out there who's done this can tell me how to go about getting assigned an internet address, and what kind of physical connection they use and to where, and just how massive a financial outlay is required. (Software is another issue, but I was going to worry about that later.) If this turns out to be impossible, I figure I'll settle for news and mail via uucp. I know one way to do this, which is to get in contact with one of the sites on the NIXPUB list. If anybody knows a better way, I'd like to hear about it. And finally, if there is a more appropriate place to post this, please let me know. (Intensive scrutiny of the list of active newgorups turned up none which really seemed right, but these seemed slightly plausible.) Please mail replies to me, if there's interest I'll summarize. Somewhere. Thanks, Dave Cottingham dc@max.berkeley.edu
ghelmer@dsuvax.uucp (Guy Helmer) (01/20/91)
In <155838@felix.UUCP> asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain) writes: >In article <00942BD0.3790B740@max.berkeley.edu> dc@max.berkeley.edu (Dave Cottingham) writes: >> It sure would be great if my PC at home were on the internet. I'm >> sure this must be possible, since there are plenty of smallish >> businesses on the internet. However, a perusal of the documents at >> nic.ddn.mil shows only how to launch a new network, which requires >> divine intervention from a government agency, and is definitely of a >> grander scale than what I have in mind. >There is interest. [...] Sites attached to the internet such that they send may send packets across NSFnet or other parts of the federally funded internet must have some relation to institutions or groups that are doing research under federal funding or are educational institutions. It's hard to find out exactly where the line is drawn, but this could rule out home ip sites unless one is involved with federal research or a university. If you are involved like this, it shouldn't be too hard to talk to your network administration and find out details of how to connect remotely to your IP net, if they will allow it. Otherwise, you will have to either be rich or have a real good reason to be on an IP net. Two commercial internet providers are UUNET Communications, which runs AlterNET, and PSI, which runs PSInet. These two providers give services which range from 9600 baud dialup to T1 (1.544Mbaud) dedicated IP service. You can't send packets from AlterNET or PSInet across NSFnet or the DDN unless you, once again, are doing federal research or are involved with a university. This makes the AlterNET and PSInet services good for connecting geographically separated portions of a company's network, but poor for your average Joe at home that wants to FTP stuff from NSFnet sites. AlterNET and PSInet people will help take care of the site setup and administration details, but they get paid well to do that. If we could just get the feds to change their restrictions on the use of the NSF & other backbones... 1/2 :-) Followups should probably go to email, since there isn't a usenet group that discusses this subject. -- More information that you couldn't have existed another day without, from: Guy Helmer helmer@sdnet.bitnet, uunet!dsuvax!ghelmer work: DSU Computing Services (605) 256-5315 play: MidIX System Support Services - Crufty Hacks 'R' Us (605) 256-2788