MVM@cup.portal.COM (12/31/88)
The attached letter is being sent to all PC Pursuit customers via
US Mail and constitutes 30 days notification of a change to the
PC Pursuit Terms and Conditions. Please leave all comments regarding
this notification to Peter Naleszkiewicz in the "prod" message
area here on the Net Exchange. You can also send US Mail to Peter
at the address listed in bulletin 11.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTIFICATION OF PRICE CHANGE for PC PURSUIT
Dear PC Pursuit customer:
The PC Pursuit service is in the midst of dramatic change. Three
major programs were instituted in 1988, including:
o Outdial City Expansion. Nine new cities were added for a
total of 34. Additionally, all the cities now support 300,
1200, and 2400 bps service.
o Increased Capacity. All existing outdial rotaries were
significantly expanded to support more callers in each city.
o New Netline Exchange. The old 4 line PC-based Netline
Exchange bulletin board system was recently replaced with a
powerful minicomputer. The Netline Exchange is available 24
hours a day at no charge to you and is the place to leave
all of your service questions and comments.
When PC Pursuit was launched over three years ago, it was viewed
as a way for residential consumers and hobbyists to take
advantage of off-peak network time at a bargain price. The
growth and varied use that followed far exceeded expectations.
To satisfy demand and to continue to offer this unique consumer
oriented communications service on as wide a basis as possible,
we now have to change our prices. The change will provide for
continued expansion and other future improvements of PC Pursuit.
Included with this letter is a copy of the new PC Pursuit terms
and conditions, as well as the new pricing details. You will
notice that for the average residential consumer, the change is
entirely in the monthly charge. For those who use PC Pursuit at
increasingly professional levels, we offer two tiers of hourly
charges which still provide for the best value in the industry.
Here is a summary of the price change:
o Monthly Charge. The new fixed charge is $30 per month.
o Cap on Free Usage. Your $30 per month will now pay for up
to 30 monthly hours of non-prime time usage. Using the full
30 hours in one month amounts to an hourly rate of only
$1.00 -- more than 85% less than you would pay with the most
popular long distance discount service. Only a small
fraction of you will even be affected by this cap.
o Over Cap Rate. Non-prime time usage, above the 30 hour cap,
will be billed at $4.50 per hour, which is about half of the
next lowest rate in the market place.
o Second Tier Rates. There will be a second level of rates
for those who use the service at business levels. When your
total monthly usage exceeds 60 hours, both prime time and
non-prime time rates will increase for those hours in excess
of 60, as follows:
PRIME TIME 2nd tier rate: $ 14.00 /hr
Non-Prime 2nd tier rate: $ 7.50 /hr
These rates are still significantly less expensive than the
most popular alternatives.
THESE PRICE CHANGES WITH THE NEW TERMS AND CONDITIONS WILL BECOME
EFFECTIVE ON FEBRUARY 1, 1989.
In addition to the price change, several other significant events
will occur in 1989, including:
o Rotary Consolidation. Today, you must specify both a city
and speed to access an outdial rotary. In 1989 new network
software will be deployed to combine each city's rotaries
into one, resulting in easier use and increased service
quality.
o New Billing System. Scheduled for operation by the second
quarter, the new system will automatically collect all
charges from your credit card, including flat rate and
hourly charges. If your bill exceeds the fixed monthly fee,
you will receive a statement prior to incurring charges.
o Additional Payment Methods. In addition to American
Express, VISA, and Master Card credit cards, the new billing
system will support two new payment methods -
- The Discover credit card.
- Direct checking account debiting via Checkfree.
o New Outdial Service. In the next few months, we will be
launching a new business outdial service. Details will
follow.
There will be many other Outdial service enhancements in 1989.
We look forward to this exciting new year, and the improvements
it will bring.
The input and support of our many thousands of satisfied
customers has helped shape the future of the PC Pursuit Service.
For this, we extend our deepest thanks. You have helped make PC
Pursuit the best end-user data communications value in the
industry.
Sincerely,
Peter Naleszkiewicz
Outdial Services Product Manager
---Mark V. Miller
MVM@cup.portal.comcraig@lakesys.UUCP (Craig Stodolenak) (12/31/88)
<notice about PC-P rate increases deleted, most notable of which is a price "cap" of 30-hours/month before they start charging per hour> ...well now, this will most _definately_ be of interest to Diversi-DIAL operators and callers. DDial is a software package for the Apple II line of micros that allows CB-type conferences @ 7 lines per Apple... the main draw being that the seperate DDial "stations" or sites can be linked together via modem to make larger networks of callers... practically 99% of these networks relying on PC-P to make them economically feasable. That, and the fact that many many UN*X sites afford to stay connected to the net via PC-P make this announcement very startling. One would think if customer-base growth and use and expanded "beyond their expectations", they'd be making sooo much money it would cover the cost of expansion? Hmm, maybe the old "what the market will bear" slogan rings true again... -- Craig L. Stodolenak Lake Systems - Milwaukee, WI craig@lakesys.lakesys.COM
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (12/31/88)
Mild but angry flame of big business screwing the little guys. (No bad words (yet). :-) In article <KPETERSEN.12458730204.BABYL@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL> MVM@cup.portal.COM writes: >The attached letter is being sent to all PC Pursuit customers via >US Mail and constitutes 30 days notification of a change to the >PC Pursuit Terms and Conditions. > >o Outdial City Expansion. Nine new cities were added for a > total of 34. Additionally, all the cities now support 300, > 1200, and 2400 bps service. Big ******* deal. Everybody who doesn't have a 2400bps indial, raise your hand. Better yet, how about everyone who doesn't have a local indial? >o New Netline Exchange. The old 4 line PC-based Netline > Exchange bulletin board system was recently replaced with a > powerful minicomputer. The Netline Exchange is available 24 > hours a day at no charge to you and is the place to leave > all of your service questions and comments. I let my computer try to autodial the net exchange for three hours tonight, and never got through. (Roughly 2am to 5am, Friday) Seems that I'm not the only one who doesn't like this. I also challenge the bit about "powerful minicomputer". The thing can't handle more than five or six people online at once, and the only thing you can do is read messages or download text files. [It's a Sun with 20 lines. I bet the response is atrocious tonight :-] >When PC Pursuit was launched over three years ago, it was viewed >as a way for residential consumers and hobbyists to take >advantage of off-peak network time at a bargain price. The >growth and varied use that followed far exceeded expectations. So now it's time for greed to take over. Summary of old rate: $25/month Summary of new rate: $30/month + $4.50/hour + $7.50/hour 30..60 hours 60+ hours (All costs for non-primetime usage.) Online time of less than 34.5 hours results in a 100% rate increase. Remember, YOU PAY FOR BUSY SIGNALS. And consider that this wasn't all a one-way street. They were able to expand and *DEBUG* their service on the backs of PCP users. A lot of the PCP users know more about telecommunications than most (all?) of the people at Telenet. I doubt they could have gotten such an informed shakedown of the new equipment from their corporate customers. >We look forward to this exciting new year, and the improvements >it will bring. > >The input and support of our many thousands of satisfied >customers has helped shape the future of the PC Pursuit Service. >For this, we extend our deepest thanks. You have helped make PC >Pursuit the best end-user data communications value in the >industry. >Sincerely, >Peter Naleszkiewicz >Outdial Services Product Manager If you go ahead with this plan, you'll have to look forward to the new year WITHOUT ME. Hopefully the thousands of "satisfied" customers will once again shape the future of the PCP service. Please, everyone voice your displeasure with this. I have nothing against an honest rate increase, but this is outrageous. Just consider all of the people who will turn to USENET to satisfy their BBS fix. And how many sites get their newsfeed via PCP? Are you willing to live with this? Jim Wright Pissed-off User
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (01/01/89)
Some people won't be satisfied with anything. Telenet gives an amazing bargain, which people like so much that they swamp it far beyond what Telenet expected, and then they put a very reasonable cap on it to help controll the excessive demand, and all people can do is complain? Be thankful you have free market forces down there. In Canada, where telecom is still regulated, you have to pay $31 per month just to get a Datapac account! That's right, just an account, NO usage included. Outdial usage costs about $5 or more per hour. Oh yes, there's also a $65 "installation" charge for the account. Other people would kill for a service like the new PC-Pursuit. Let's be honest. People who were running full time conferences and usenet transfers over PC-pursuit were abusing it, and you had every reason to expect that they would want to charge for this sort of thing. Fact is, too many people took the "unlimited" too literally, and so they have changed it. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson) (01/01/89)
Like most others, I am not thrilled with the price increase at PCP effective February 1. Why they choose to charge more for customers who buy more of their service is beyond me. Usually the price gets cheaper when the purchases grow larger. Regretfully, it was the Diversi-Dial and Usenet people who probably abused the service the most by keeping lines tied up for hours on end, all for the $25 per month. From the beginning, it was never intended for quite as much use as some people gave it. Still, even with the price increase -- even a 100 percent increase caused by running a few hours over the allotment -- PCP is the best bargain in town for long distance data connections. The cheapest rates you can get on direct dial via the phone network is $7.55 per hour late at night on Reach Out America. 12.5 cents per minute, compared to less than a cent per minute on PCP within the thirty hour time frame. I will keep it and try hard to stay within the 30 hour allowance, and in no case run more than one or two hours per month over the allotment. -- Patrick A. Townson ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us < > ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu US MAIL: 60690-1570 Online terminal: 312-743-3333
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/01/89)
In article <7342@chinet.chi.il.us> ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson) writes: >Still, even with the price increase -- even a 100 percent increase caused by >running a few hours over the allotment -- PCP is the best bargain in town >for long distance data connections. The cheapest rates you can get on direct >dial via the phone network is $7.55 per hour late at night on Reach Out >America. 12.5 cents per minute, compared to less than a cent per minute on >PCP within the thirty hour time frame. > >I will keep it and try hard to stay within the 30 hour allowance, and in >no case run more than one or two hours per month over the allotment. You might try checking some of the messages on the Net Exchange. Telenet has no plans for providing you with information on your monthly usage. Except of course when you receive your bill on the 15th of the next month. So unless you are incredibly disciplined, you'll be running blind. Most of the joy of the old PCP was that you could call across the country and leave messages without having a stopwatch mounted on your terminal. Your analysis of charges is way out of line. What other service will charge you for busy signals? They haven't made it clear whether they will charge for all the time you're connected to the indial, or just for the the time connected to an outdial city. But you can be sure that you WILL BE CHARGED for busy signals while trying to connect. Also, don't forget that on PCP you're limited to 1200bps (unless you're fortunate enough to live in an area blessed with a 2400bps outdial). Plus the little matter of just how well itemized the monthly bill will be. I fear it will simply have one line on it: "Please pay $348.26 for February usage". Using it for less than 34.5 hours in a month results in a 100% price increase. OUTRAGEOUS. I'm glad I don't own stock in this company. I wonder if they will even exist 12 months from now. The bad feelings from this can't help but spill over to their other ventures.
rick@kimbal.UUCP (Rick Kimball) (01/01/89)
From article <7342@chinet.chi.il.us>, by ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson): > Still, even with the price increase -- even a 100 percent increase caused by > running a few hours over the allotment -- PCP is the best bargain in town > for long distance data connections. The cheapest rates you can get on direct > dial via the phone network is $7.55 per hour late at night on Reach Out > America. 12.5 cents per minute, compared to less than a cent per minute on > PCP within the thirty hour time frame. Eric, Your missing the point about the price increase. They are trying to charge premium prices for a service which is not. If I could achieve the same thoughput over a PC-Pursuit connection as I could with a direct dial then it would be a bargin. However, at 2400 baud they best I could get was about 130 cps. Also, with PC-Pursuit it is not unreasonable to wait an hour just to get a Telenet port in the city with which you would like to connect. When was the last time you waited an hour for a dialtone? On top of that, wouldn't you scream to the FCC if the phone company started billing you the second you received that dialtone? Well that's the way it works with PC-Pursuit. If they don't change their thinking on the pricing struture I will have to drop they service. Currently I'm using about 50 hours a month getting a usenet feed at 1200 baud (2400 didn't work any faster). That sure makes a Trailblazer look like a bargin. I think that PC-Pursuit was a scam dreamed up by some lawyer types at Telenet so that they could defeat the access charges that were being considered by the FCC. They have no achieved their goal and now they don't care anything about the typical PC-Pursuit user. -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Rick Kimball | Mac Source BBS, Altamonte Springs, FL DATA (407) 862-6214 | VOICE (407) 788-6875 UUCP: rick@kimbal ..!gatech!fabscal!kimbal!rick ..!ucf-cs!sdgsun!kimbal!rick
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/01/89)
In article <2572@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >Some people won't be satisfied with anything. > >Be thankful you have free market forces down there. In Canada, where >telecom is still regulated, [...] >-- >Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 Haven't you heard? Parliment just approved the third reading of the bill which makes Canada the 51st state. Wait a bit and you'll soon have this service. :-) [I agree there were some (a very few) terrible abuses going on. I just feel victimized having to bear the burden of others faults.]
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (01/02/89)
You're all blaming Telenet. I think they would rather have kept the unlimited use system -- after all, it was their idea! I'm sure they think it's a pain to have to institute accounting for everybody, and special charge billing. It was put in, as far as I know, to let people call BBSs and time sharing systems in other towns for their PERSONAL use. If that is all people had done, that would probably have been fine. An hour of use every day would make you a fairly high-use BBS user. But no. Lots of people started using it for far more than their own personal use. Some shared accounts, being so cheap as to not be willing to pay the $25 each. Some started feeding OTHER PEOPLE's data over it, as a service. Some even ran USENET feeds, effectively feeding data for me and tens of thousands of others. Some set up chat networks that stayed signed on all the time! This is personal use folks? Not a chance. It's all the people who abused the spirit of PC-Pursuit that have caused it to change. If you are looking for somebody to yell at, yell at them. (USENET feeds were probably the worst, because they consist of hours of 100% data transmission, not the sporadic data and keyboard interaction that you get from the interactive calling of a BBS to read messages.) -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (01/02/89)
> Like most others, I am not thrilled with the price increase at PCP effective > February 1. Why they choose to charge more for customers who buy more of > their service is beyond me. Usually the price gets cheaper when the purchases > grow larger. Because PC Pursuit is a stepchild idea designed to suck up some otherwise unused cycles from their normal packet service, which is exhorbitantly expensive compared to PC Pursuit prices. They don't want you to make large amounts of it, they just want the $30 per person that they can get by selling the off-peak usage for. For "commercial" or otherwise large scale sites, they want you to buy their horrendous standard service. -Ron
tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) (01/02/89)
watmath!looking!brad@uunet.UU.NET (Brad Templeton) writes: > ... which people like so much that they swamp it far beyond what > Telenet expected, and then they put a very reasonable cap on it to help > controll the excessive demand... > People who were running full time conferences and > usenet transfers over PC-pursuit were abusing it... > too many people took the "unlimited" too literally, and so they have > changed it. and att!chinet!ptownson@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (Patrick Townson) writes: > it was the ... Usenet people who probably abused > the service the most by keeping lines tied up for hours on end... > ... it was never intended for quite as much > use as some people gave it. Sorry, I don't buy that reasoning. The contract we all got with our PC Pursuit accounts was clear that it was an unlimited service. The advertising I saw used the fact that it was an unlimited service as a selling point. The people who manage TELENET are not idiots: TELENET must have known that people would take advantage of the "unlimitedness" of the service... I don't think it is fair to blame USENET and other "heavy" users for TELENET's change in policy. We (yes, I admit to being a heavy PC Pursuit user) were working within PC Pursuit's rules. Perhaps they should have done a little better research, or had written in a ceiling in the original contract? The point here is not that USENET users are "abusing" PC Pursuit, but that TELENET didn't correctly estimate the number of people that would take advantage of their offer for unlimited service. -- Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu> Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA
wisner@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Bill Wisner) (01/02/89)
>The bad feelings from this can't help but spill over to their other >ventures. Alas, you forget that GTE is a very, very big company. We might possibly succeed in killing PC Pursuit but we would never succeed in killing GTE or even in killing TELENET.
Dave Brennan (01/02/89)
Brad Templeton (brad@looking.UUCP) writes: >Using it for less than 34.5 hours in a month results in a 100% price >increase. I think you meant 'more that 34.5.' Also interesting is that the new rates are designed to discourage high usage - seems it would make more sense (from the customer standpoint) if more useage resulted in reduced rates. Getting several accounts seems to be the way to go, but for automated systems, keeping track of usage and selecting the appropriate account could be a pain.
rick@kimbal.UUCP (Rick Kimball) (01/02/89)
From article <2575@looking.UUCP>, by brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton): > It was put in, as far as I know, to let people call BBSs and time sharing > systems in other towns for their PERSONAL use. If that is all people had > done, that would probably have been fine. An hour of use every day would > make you a fairly high-use BBS user. > From my booklet from Telenet called "How to Use Telenet's PC Pursuit Service" : - Start of quote - About Telenet's PC Pursuit Service PC Pursuit is designed for PC users at small and medium-sized businesses and at home, who are looking for a cost-effective alternative to long-distance direct dial or WATS services for PC communications. From thousands of U.S. cities and towns, a user can establish an unlimited number of connections to telephone-accessible databases, bulletin boards, and other communicating PC's in America's largest business and information hubs. - End of quote You'll note that personal use was never a selling point of PC Pursuit. It was specifically targeted at business followed by home users as an alternative to watching the clock. -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Rick Kimball | Mac Source BBS, Altamonte Springs, FL DATA (407) 862-6214 | VOICE (407) 788-6875 UUCP: rick@kimbal ..!gatech!fabscal!kimbal!rick ..!ucf-cs!sdgsun!kimbal!rick
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/02/89)
In article <m0eaHm9-0001sRC@killer.Dallas.TX.US> wisner@killer.Dallas.TX.US (Bill Wisner) writes: >>The bad feelings from this can't help but spill over to their other >>ventures. > >Alas, you forget that GTE is a very, very big company. We might possibly >succeed in killing PC Pursuit but we would never succeed in killing GTE >or even in killing TELENET. Forgive my stupidity, but how (if at all) is Telenet related to GTE? [feed for brain-dead mailer] [feed] [feed] [feed] [feed]
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/02/89)
In article <9592.606.forumexp@mts.rpi.edu> Dave Brennan writes: > >Using it for less than 34.5 hours in a month results in a 100% price > >increase. > I think you meant 'more that 34.5.' 4.5 hours x $4.50 = $20.25 $30.00 + $20.25 = $50.25 2 x $25.00 = $50.00 Thus, using it for LESS than 34.5 hours results in a 100% price increase. (A very tiny little bit less, though. :-) That's what I meant.
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/02/89)
In article <2575@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >An hour of use every day would make you a fairly high-use BBS user. Yes, if you only have local BBS's to call. No, if you are a (former?) PCPursuit user. >Some started feeding OTHER PEOPLE's data over it, >as a service. Some even ran USENET feeds, effectively feeding data for >me and tens of thousands of others. Some set up chat networks that stayed >signed on all the time! > >This is personal use folks? Not a chance. It's all the people who abused >the spirit of PC-Pursuit that have caused it to change. If you are looking >for somebody to yell at, yell at them. If you logged into the Net Exchange, you would know that in the statement of policy (and the inevitable clarifications which followed) Telenet made it clear that FidoNet and Usenet feeds are valid uses of PCPursuit. What was prohibited was the DiversiDial systems. These are probably the scum who wrecked it for us all, if you must point a finger at some group of the user community. Another possibility is the decision was completely internal to Telenet. [Yes, I realize you're in Canada and have no way of knowing what is posted on the US-only service. This is just FYI.]
cabreu@marob.MASA.COM (Carlos Cabreu) (01/02/89)
In article <8901012214.AA25093@amon-re.cs.odu.edu> tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes: >Sorry, I don't buy that reasoning. The contract we all got with our >PC Pursuit accounts was clear that it was an unlimited service. The >advertising I saw used the fact that it was an unlimited service as a >selling point. The people who manage TELENET are not idiots: TELENET >must have known that people would take advantage of the >"unlimitedness" of the service... Well, years ago when TELENET introduced its PC-Pursuit product they were looking to make money during the off-peak hours when their network was almost completely idle. I don't believe that they ever expected it to turn into the behemoth-brute-thing it is now. Even with all their market saavy, they could never have anticipated it; Telenet would have never introduced the product in the first place. No, they're not idiots, but they don't have a crystal ball either. >I don't think it is fair to blame USENET and other "heavy" users for >TELENET's change in policy. We (yes, I admit to being a heavy PC >Pursuit user) were working within PC Pursuit's rules. Perhaps they >should have done a little better research, or had written in a ceiling >in the original contract? It's more than a change in "policy." It's a change in pricing structure. It's foolish to think that their apparent "altruism" would last forever. Telenet has saved me untold sums over the years and I'm grateful for that. Even their new pricing is substantially better than Ma Bell's. >The point here is not that USENET users are "abusing" PC Pursuit, but >that TELENET didn't correctly estimate the number of people that would >take advantage of their offer for unlimited service. At the risk of sounding like a devil's advocate (since I use PC-Pursuit a lot), they're correcting an oversight of theirs and I'm surprised they didn't do something about it earlier. I've always had the feeling that PC-Pursuit customers were treated like second-rate citizens (for $25.00 a month -- you get what you pay for.) The thing to look forward to is improved service from Telenet. They'd be unwise not to re-invest money after the price hike to improve service. -- Carlos Manuel Abreu MASE CSE CDP CCP /---------/ Cyberphilia/NYC (212) 431-0434 /----------------------------------------/428 Broome Street, New York, NY 10013
ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson) (01/03/89)
In article <8901012214.AA25093@amon-re.cs.odu.edu> tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes: >Sorry, I don't buy that reasoning. The contract we all got with our >PC Pursuit accounts was clear that it was an unlimited service. The >advertising I saw used the fact that it was an unlimited service as a >selling point. The people who manage TELENET are not idiots: TELENET >must have known that people would take advantage of the >"unlimitedness" of the service... > >I don't think it is fair to blame USENET and other "heavy" users for >TELENET's change in policy. We (yes, I admit to being a heavy PC >Pursuit user) were working within PC Pursuit's rules. Perhaps they >should have done a little better research, or had written in a ceiling >in the original contract? > >The point here is not that USENET users are "abusing" PC Pursuit, but >that TELENET didn't correctly estimate the number of people that would >take advantage of their offer for unlimited service. Well, you are correct that Telenet did not correctly estimate the number of subscribers they would be getting and/or the amount of usage each would generate. It never occurred to them that people would make 'unlimited' use of the service to the extent of 1000+ hours per month. What would you have them do now, live with that mistake forever? Yes, certainly the D-Dial operators and Usenet people were well within their contractual rights to open a circuit at 6PM on Friday and keep it up until 7AM on Monday. Are you now saying Telenet has no right to renegotiate the terms of the contract? Maybe I should have phrased my original message differently and said it was the D-Dials and Usenet which 'forced Telenet to change the terms of the contract.' Is that better, rather than actually casting blame on certain users? The people and organizations who want to use PC Pursuit in a more business- like setting will now have the opportunity to pay business-like rates. I found out over the weekend the reason the rates get higher as more service is used is that Telenet figures the larger the amount of usage, the more likely the originator of the traffic is running a business. While D-Dials are not profit making businesses in the usual sense, they are services which charge their users (in many cases) for a product. Telenet felt they should not have to bear the brunt of that. -- Patrick A. Townson ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us < > ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu US MAIL: 60690-1570 Online terminal: 312-743-3333
amanda@lts.UUCP (Amanda Walker) (01/03/89)
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes:
... I'm glad I don't own stock in this company. I
wonder if they will even exist 12 months from now. The bad feelings
from this can't help but spill over to their other ventures.
Well, although I can appreciate your feelings, it's not very likely.
GTE Telenet is one of the more successful and established
telecommunications companies, after all, and they could probably drop
PC Pursuit altogether without any particular trouble.
As I understood things, PC Pursuit was a clever way to get a little
additional revenue from BBS users during time when the existing
commercial network was not being fully utilized. From this point of
view, the new charges make sense. If you are using it to log in to
BBS's across the country, it's still the way to go. If you're using
in a commercial fashion (such as long-haul Usenet links), you get to
pay for it. Seems pretty fair to me. There ain't no such thing as a
free lunch.
The issue of whether or not GTE should have done better market
research in the beginning so that they would have realized that people
would use it for things like Usenet and Fidonet is a separate issue, I
think. Sometimes we forget how unknown these things really are in
"the real world." It's only in the last couple of years that simple
hobbyist BBS's have started to really be visible. The idea of
something with the size and success of Usenet would surprise a great
number of people, I think. I doubt the idea of PC Pursuit was started
by an engineer, but by an upper-level manager or executive, probably
someone who never heard of Usenet, and who now has to cope with
mis-reading the potential market for the service :-). At least they
are trying to minimize the impact on the people they see as their
primary users.
This does point out, though, that there is certainly a market for
cheap, on-demand, long-haul data services. Usenet feeds and mail
relays do tend to fall between the cracks in the classical divisions
in the telecom market: it's more than casual use, but it's not
commercial up-all-the-time use either. Ideally, something in between
normal phone service and a leased line would be great--something on
the order of, "I want a 9600 baud dialout channel, but only 2 hours a
day." I do know that various of the BOCs are experimenting with
switched 56K baud service, which would be ideal. Unfortunately, I
think that even when this available, it's only within a given local
dialing area, and I don't know anything about the fee structure.
In a way, this whole situation reminds me of the flap over the FCC
tariffs a while back. Nobody in a position to make decisions seems to
appreciate that the demand for personal data services has kept pace
with the commercial demand. Sigh.
Just a few thoughts,
--
Amanda Walker ...!uunet!lts!amanda / lts!amanda@uunet.uu.net
InterCon, 11732 Bowman Green Drive, Reston, VA 22090
--
Calm down; it's only ones and zeros...ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson) (01/03/89)
In article <824@kimbal.UUCP> rick@kimbal.UUCP (Rick Kimball) writes: >From article <7342@chinet.chi.il.us>, by ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson): >> Still, even with the price increase -- even a 100 percent increase caused by >> running a few hours over the allotment -- PCP is the best bargain in town >> for long distance data connections. The cheapest rates you can get on direct >> dial via the phone network is $7.55 per hour late at night on Reach Out >> America. 12.5 cents per minute, compared to less than a cent per minute on >> PCP within the thirty hour time frame. > >Eric, > >Your missing the point about the price increase. They are trying >to charge premium prices for a service which is not. If I could >achieve the same thoughput over a PC-Pursuit connection as I could >with a direct dial then it would be a bargin. However, at 2400 >baud they best I could get was about 130 cps. Also, with >PC-Pursuit it is not unreasonable to wait an hour just to get a >Telenet port in the city with which you would like to connect. >When was the last time you waited an hour for a dialtone? On top >of that, wouldn't you scream to the FCC if the phone company >started billing you the second you received that dialtone? Well >that's the way it works with PC-Pursuit. > >If they don't change their thinking on the pricing struture I will >have to drop they service. Currently I'm using about 50 hours a >month getting a usenet feed at 1200 baud (2400 didn't work any >faster). That sure makes a Trailblazer look like a bargin. > >I think that PC-Pursuit was a scam dreamed up by some lawyer types >at Telenet so that they could defeat the access charges that were >being considered by the FCC. They have no achieved their goal and >now they don't care anything about the typical PC-Pursuit user. I'm a little confused. I wrote the message you replied to; however Eric Townsend (somewhere in Texas, I think) also wrote a message on this. You quoted my message, then addressed Eric with your reply. Were you trying to respond to me or him? You say they are charging 'premium rates'. $1 per hour as of 2/1/88 and pennies per hour over the past three and a half years are NOT premium rates. Telenet usually charges $10-14 per hour to their mostly daytime corporate customers. Yes, they do charge as of the second they receive your valid ID entered on line. But the days of 'waiting an hour for a dialtone' should be about over, once the D-Dial people no longer keep a port tied up for 12 hours per night and 60 hours straight on weekends. There are a huge number of users who simply would camp out for hours on end. You should find the network congestion is greatly reduced. In addition, Telenet is expanding the capacity of the in/outdials, so that even if the line hogs stayed around after 2/1/89 the traffic should move better than it has. Rather than having been 'thought up by some lawyer', PCP was a marketing decision made in 1983 based on the increasing number of personal computer/ modem owners who were calling long distance. I'll grant you their math was incorrect, but there was nothing devious about their decision to start the program. All PCP is, after all, is a restricted-use NUI (Network User Identification) Billing Code which handles billing differently than a regular NUI. PCP was around long before the 'FCC dreamed up the access charges which had to be defeated...'. Those access charges would have equally affected the corporate customers on which Telenet bases the bulk of its business. In truth, *all PCP accounts combined* provide Telenet only about 5 percent of its revenues, but about 50 percent of its headaches where customer service and administration are concerned. You would not believe the large number of *stupid* calls to customer service asking questions like 'how do I hook up my modem?'.....the corporate customers, who make up 90+ percent of the traffic and are already paying $10-14 per hour don't give Telenet nearly as much trouble. PCP was 'invented' when some marketing types found they had a network which was virtually deserted at night and on weekends, and that they could peddle that unused capacity to personal users with no adverse effect on their bread and butter customers at all. As stated above, they got more than they bargained on; sometimes at night and on weekends the network has as much traffic as on an average weekday. -- Patrick A. Townson ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us < > ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu US MAIL: 60690-1570 Online terminal: 312-743-3333
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/03/89)
In article <437@marob.MASA.COM> cabreu@marob.masa.com (Carlos Cabreu) writes: >Well, years ago when TELENET introduced its PC-Pursuit product they were >looking to make money during the off-peak hours when their network was almost >completely idle. I don't believe that they ever expected it to turn into >the behemoth-brute-thing it is now. Even with all their market saavy, >they could never have anticipated it; Telenet would have never introduced the >product in the first place. >No, they're not idiots, but they don't have a crystal ball either. >At the risk of sounding like a devil's advocate (since I use PC-Pursuit >a lot), they're correcting an oversight of theirs and I'm surprised they >didn't do something about it earlier. "Correcting an oversight" is a very, uh, POLITE way of putting it. If this was really getting out of hand, why did they add 2400bps? If this was really getting out of hand, why did they add more cities? If this was really getting out of hand, why did they put the Net Exchange on a Sun? If this was just a sideline as some people infer, then why upgrade everything? They kept adding features, promising to unbreak the broken file transfers, etc. etc. If all they wanted was to get a little extra income out of unused lines, then why didn't they just say, "Hey folks, here it is. For 25 bucks, take it or leave it." Busy lines would have made the service self-regulating. Instead they kept adding features. And adding customers. Can you say "Bait and switch"? I can just see the marketing guys up on the 25th floor with smiles from ear to ear.
pavlov@hscfvax.harvard.edu (G.Pavlov) (01/03/89)
In article <8901012214.AA25093@amon-re.cs.odu.edu>, tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes: > > Sorry, I don't buy that reasoning. The contract we all got with our > PC Pursuit accounts was clear that it was an unlimited service. The > advertising I saw used the fact that it was an unlimited service as a > selling point. .......... > > > The point here is not that USENET users are "abusing" PC Pursuit, but > that TELENET didn't correctly estimate the number of people that would > take advantage of their offer for unlimited service. > No, Usenet users did not "abuse" the service, they simply took advantage of bargain-rate communications facilities. Now that is gone, in all likeli- hood because TELENET, as you say, made a mistake (from their financial point of view) and has now "corrected" it. Obviously, TELENET no longer wishes to use unlimited service as a "selling point". The various people who claim that they will drop the service be- cause it is no longer cost-effective will go ahead and do so because their usage is such that this is most likely true. That's the type of cost-analy- sis decision that many of us have to make frequently. If these people are free to do so, why shouldn't TELENET ? Does it have a monopoly on communi- cations services ??? On the other hand, I don't understand the finger-pointing at Usenet people either, other than that there seems to be a tendency to equate "blame" with "analysis". What usage level constitutes "abuse" ? Does anyone ACTUALLY know that the people who sat on an open line all weekend did, in fact, place a heavier aggregate load on the system than the people who, say, used it for 30-50 hours ? Many message writers attribute a high level of intelligence to TELENET, tho assume that it is being applied in a devious and malevolent manner. Just for the sake of being devil's advocate, I will assume the former but not the latter. TELENET has analyzed its records, (maybe) performed some market- ing studies, and most certainly took a look at the competition, and has concluded that the new rate structure will appeal to enough people and at the same time yield a good (excellent ?) profit. It will utilize some of the additional revenue to improve access, since (I will guess) the usage patterns of PC Pursuit are sufficiently different from full-rate usage, re- sulting in bottlenecks at the access points and excess capacity in the trans- mission lines. I assume that the TELENET people factored the 60-hour con- cets into this. Maybe I am wrong. But I haven't seen any solid information to indicate that this is the case. Maybe TELENET is wrong. If so, I am sure that they will adjust the rates until they get it right. greg pavlov, fstrf, amherst, ny service and (I assume) its full-rate customers. assume the former but
james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) (01/03/89)
In <2575@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) wrote: > (USENET feeds were probably the worst, because they consist of hours > of 100% data transmission, not the sporadic data and keyboard > interaction that you get from the interactive calling of a BBS to read > messages.) I find this counterintuitive. Network carrying capacity has never been a problem that I've been able to notice. Phone line time has always been the issue. In addition, GTE made no effort to inhibit volume usage - there modifications are solely designed to discourage phone line utilization. I *do* find the idea of carrying a fairly full news feed over PCP amazing. A news flood could easy exceed the nightly 13 hour window at PCP's usually abysmal transfer rates. -- James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die" DCC Corporation 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759 512-338-8789
james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) (01/03/89)
In <7354@chinet.chi.il.us>, ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson) wrote: > I'm a little confused. I wrote the message you replied to; however Eric > Townsend (somewhere in Texas, I think) also wrote a message on this. You > quoted my message, then addressed Eric with your reply. Were you trying > to respond to me or him? I must apologize to comp.dcom.modems users for the confusion. I administer the PC Pursuit mailing list (info-pursuit@uunet.uu.net). Somebody, somewhere, has apparently decided to gateway the mailing list to comp.dcom.modems (and maybe back again). It apparently isn't working perfectly. Someone else has a alias sending to "mriccio" and "/dev/null", both of which generate errors back to me without any information about where the original bad alias is. Ah, the joys of running a mailing list... -- James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die" DCC Corporation 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759 512-338-8789
root@radar.UUCP (root) (01/03/89)
In article <824@kimbal.UUCP> rick@kimbal.UUCP (Rick Kimball) writes: >From article <7342@chinet.chi.il.us>, by ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson): >> Still, even with the price increase -- even a 100 percent increase caused by >> running a few hours over the allotment -- PCP is the best bargain in town > >Your missing the point about the price increase. They are trying >to charge premium prices for a service which is not. If I could >achieve the same thoughput over a PC-Pursuit connection as I could >with a direct dial then it would be a bargin. However, at 2400 >baud they best I could get was about 130 cps. I agree..the new pricing scheme and the accompanying letter makes it sound like you are getting a premium service, which you most certainly are not. COMPARE: Conventional dialup PC Pursuit -maximum throughput 1800 -maximum throughput 120-130 cps cps with TBT+ (reported) -no charge until connected -can accumulate substantial charges to final destination attempting to connect Your actual mileage may vary, but I think conventional dialup services will receive a serious look here. I would not shed any tears over not having to deal with the Telenet/PCP network software, either. Donn S. Fishbein CDS Consulting
cabreu@marob.MASA.COM (Carlos Cabreu) (01/03/89)
In article <580@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu> jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes: >"Correcting an oversight" is a very, uh, POLITE way of putting it. I'm just a polite kinda guy. >If this was really getting out of hand, why did they add 2400bps? >If this was really getting out of hand, why did they add more cities? >If this was really getting out of hand, why did they put the Net >Exchange on a Sun? Come on ... I don't think Telenet wants to do away with PC-Pursuit. Besides, I'm sure that the Sun wasn't purchased for the sole reason of running Net Exchange. Telenet has many other products, including Telemail, an electronic mail package that's very popular and less expensive than MCI Mail and other commercial systems. I'd venture to say that many (or most) of the resources used by PC-Pursuit are shared with other Telenet products. >If this was just a sideline as some people infer, then why upgrade >everything? They kept adding features, promising to unbreak the >broken file transfers, etc. etc. If all they wanted was to get a >little extra income out of unused lines, then why didn't they just >say, "Hey folks, here it is. For 25 bucks, take it or leave it." >Busy lines would have made the service self-regulating. Originally it WAS a sideline, by their own admission. Even the WSJ said so. Realizing the potential of the product, they've improved it, and plan to continue it. The price hike was simply long overdue. >Instead they kept adding features. And adding customers. Can you >say "Bait and switch"? I can just see the marketing guys up on >the 25th floor with smiles from ear to ear. A famous Cuban once said -- "'splain to me Looccee ..." That's the nature of product support. You introduce a product, get some customers, improve the product, and get more customers. Seems straight- forward enough. -- Carlos Manuel Abreu MASE CSE CDP CCP /---------/ Cyberphilia/NYC (212) 431-0434 /----------------------------------------/428 Broome Street, New York, NY 10013
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (01/03/89)
(This is being xposted to news.admin due to the number of sites that move Usenet news via PC Persuit at the present time). In article <437@marob.MASA.COM> cabreu@marob.masa.com (Carlos Cabreu) writes: >In article <8901012214.AA25093@amon-re.cs.odu.edu> tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) >writes: > >>Sorry, I don't buy that reasoning. The contract we all got with our >>PC Pursuit accounts was clear that it was an unlimited service. The >>advertising I saw used the fact that it was an unlimited service as a >>selling point. > >Well, years ago when TELENET introduced its PC-Pursuit product they were >looking to make money during the off-peak hours when their network was almost >completely idle. I don't believe that they ever expected it to turn into >the behemoth-brute-thing it is now. They are still making money off their PC Persuit service I'd bet -- but now they want to make more money -- a whole lot more. If thousands of people do the analysis I've done, though, they may lose all their subscribers instead and be back to where they were before PC Persuit at night (fixed leased lines cost $, regardless of use!) :-) >>I don't think it is fair to blame USENET and other "heavy" users for >>TELENET's change in policy. We (yes, I admit to being a heavy PC >>Pursuit user) were working within PC Pursuit's rules. Perhaps they >>should have done a little better research, or had written in a ceiling >>in the original contract? > >It's more than a change in "policy." It's a change in pricing structure. >It's foolish to think that their apparent "altruism" would last forever. >Telenet has saved me untold sums over the years and I'm grateful for that. >Even their new pricing is substantially better than Ma Bell's. Not if you have more than a 1200 baud modem it isn't. Tell you what -- let's look: $30.00 - First 30 hours, plus LOCAL CHARGES. 4.50 - Per hour after 30, up to 60. ???? - No idea what it is after 60 hours. Note the important LOCAL CHARGES point. Here it costs me $3.00/hour or so to call the Telenet node (since Telenet two years and change ago moved ALL their indial ports to downtown Chicago from suburban locations! I used to have a Telenet indial port 5 miles from here; no longer. Now it's a timed call.) So, what we have here (and only for the first 30 hours) is: 3.00 + 1.00 - $4.00/hour on PC Persuit, 7.75 - $7.75 an hour on AT&T direct-dial (+/- $1/hour) Note that the AT&T long distance (or anyone else's) includes that nasty nickle-a-minute charge that the local operating company gets us for, while Telenet's service doesn't (they don't collect it either, but I still pay it!) The PC Persuit service looks like a little better deal.... until you figure these numbers into the picture: Average Transfer rate PCP Direct Dial (in cps) ~90cps ~1100cps Telebit modem, PEP mode ~90cps ~220cps 2400-baud garden-variety modem This ~90cps REAL throughput is what we get on uucp, regardless of whether it's a 1200 or 2400 baud originating (and answering) call. The bottleneck is due to the round-trip ACK delays -- even with windows=7 you hit the wall at 2400 baud. Xmodem or Kermit get even worse throughput (less than half UUCP!) The _only_ protocol which gets reasonable throughput is Zmodem, and only if the connection is clean (errors force retransmission of more material, again due to the delays). Now, which method do you think I will use to move my news and mail traffic if I'm paying for it out of my own pocket? Which way would you think I would counsel people to use for their own private BBSing (remember, people download too -- which is a file transfer where throughput is VERY important)? For anyone doing more than 30 hours now on PC Persuit, it makes even less sense to continue to use it. I'll grant you that for a 1200 baud modem owner, or (heaven forbid) 300 baud, PC Persuit looks good. But 2400-baud modems are commonplace these days -- they can be had for under $200. >I've always had the feeling that PC-Pursuit customers were treated like >second-rate citizens (for $25.00 a month -- you get what you pay for.) >The thing to look forward to is improved service from Telenet. They'd >be unwise not to re-invest money after the price hike to improve service. We have always been treated like second-rate citizens. When I have had problems with their gear dropping the line (in the middle of a call, unprovoked!) they simply said "oh well, we'll look into it". Even an offer of active assistance (ie: you tell me when, I'll initiate a call and you watch for what goes wrong) was refused. Then there were the security problems -- people could attach to your indial port (and spoof you while typing your password!). They finally fixed that (or claimed they did; I never knew how the crackers were doing it so I couldn't verify that.) Remember the horrid problems with billed usage (like calls when there was no physical means for them to have been made) when they finally got their billing computer working? (Working? Well, almost.) Telenet also took advantage of the PC Persuit subscriber base in their quest to block the recent FCC action -- regardless of how you slice it, without PC Persuit there would NOT have been that massive letter campaign to the FCC offices and Congresspersons! If the letter campaign had not succeeded, PC Persuit >AND< Telenet's bread-and-butter daytime service would have been more expensive to use than direct dial -- even during the daytime hours! I think it's fair to say that Telenet did manipulate their PC Persuit subscriber base -- most of who (hopefully) will now realize that (1) they've been taken advantage of, and (2) that AT&T or MCI is cheaper to use than PC Persuit on a $-per-byte-moved basis. I won't argue with the fact that some people are (and were) using PC Persuit in rather "odd" ways. I wouldn't consider Usenet and Fido feeds to be "odd", as Telenet has officially said "that's fine". The DDialers who leave connections open all weekend may be another matter; I've seen this too. But DDials are ALL 300 baud -- how much congestion on PC Persuit is on the 300 baud outdials? (Answer: NONE. It's all at 1200 and 2400 baud). PC Persuit is a second-class service, yes. I didn't mind it when we were considered second-class but had second-class costs. Now that they're more expensive per byte moved than any other calling method I'm gonna drop 'em, and I suggest that ALL their subscribers do the same. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl) Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality solutions at a fair price"
charles@c3pe.UUCP (Charles Green) (01/04/89)
In article <[0-9]*@[^>]*> [a-z]*@[a-z0-9.]* ([A-Z][a-z]* [A-Z][a-z]*) writes: >How dare Telenet raise their rates! Who do they think they are? Sheesh. The last time I checked, the American way is to charge whatever the market will bear for a product or service. If there are more potential customers than you can satisfy, raise the price. If you don't have enough people to buy what you're selling, and it will maximize your profit to do so, lower the price. In short, the customer defines the value of whatever you have to offer. If you don't like the price increase, then either go support the competition or find some other way to *not* support PCPursuit. In short, the vote you cast with your money is what matters. -- Charles Green, C3 Inc charles%c3pe@decuac.dec.com ex::!echo Gotcha: (vi modeline test - is your system secure?)
bdb@becker.UUCP (Bruce Becker) (01/04/89)
In article <579@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu> jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes: > [...] >If you logged into the Net Exchange, you would know that in the statement >of policy (and the inevitable clarifications which followed) Telenet made it >clear that FidoNet and Usenet feeds are valid uses of PCPursuit. What was >prohibited was the DiversiDial systems. These are probably the scum who >wrecked it for us all, if you must point a finger at some group of the >user community. Another possibility is the decision was completely internal >to Telenet. Another possibility is that Telenet got greedy. Once a significant customer base has been developed, they might gamble that the problems of replacing the PCP service would outweigh the dollar cost increases in the minds of said customers. It is even possible that they has such a strategy in place from the start, but this is less likely... Cheers, -- _ _/\ Bruce Becker Toronto, Ont. \`o O| Internet: bdb@becker.UUCP, bruce@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu \(")/ BitNet: BECKER@HUMBER.BITNET ---mm-U-mm--- "The OSF is suffering from Penix envy" - Rocky Raccoon
gp@ohsu-hcx.UUCP (glen plam) (01/04/89)
Today I got the letter about the great rate increase. I dropped pcp a long time ago because the service was so bad. I got no help at all about how to use the system. I got a few pages of copied instuctions and a bill. I still see no reason to use the system. GTE has a right to charge anything they want. I think they raise the prices because they think they can make more money. There is nothing wrong with that. If you think that's to high then go someway else. I think $25 was to much and I quit.
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/04/89)
In article <441@marob.MASA.COM> cabreu@marob.masa.com (Carlos Cabreu) writes: >The price hike was simply long overdue. Agreed. But if only it could have been *reasonable*. >That's the nature of product support. You introduce a product, get some >customers, improve the product, and get more customers. Seems straight- >forward enough. But my complaint is that this was more of a bombshell, rather than the evolution of a service. If they really need a rate hike of these proportions, then they must have known about it for a while. And in that while they continued to solicit new business under the guise of "$25/month flat rate". I just don't think I've been dealt fairly with.
cabreu@marob.MASA.COM (Carlos Cabreu) (01/04/89)
In article <2625@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: >They are still making money off their PC Persuit service I'd bet -- but now >they want to make more money -- a whole lot more. That's the American way. Any of us in their shoes would do the same thing. >If thousands of people do the analysis I've done, though, they may lose >all their subscribers instead and be back to where they were before PC >Persuit at night (fixed leased lines cost $, regardless of use!) :-) You're speaking Net-traffic here. The bulk of their subscribers are individuals. To the individual it's a great deal. >Not if you have more than a 1200 baud modem it isn't. Tell you what -- >let's look .... (figures and rationalization here). If you're convinced that PC-Pursuit is no longer right for you (and it isn't the same for each and every one of us), the I suggest that you don't use it any more. The average individual doesn't have a 'Blazer. The average individual WILL use ZModem (even a version for CP/M was just released) or or another windowed protocol (Windowed XModem, or Windowed/Super Kermit, etc.) to get better throughput. The slow transfer rates experienced on PC-Pursuit are indiginous to packet-switching nets, you simply have to use a higher octane gasoline to get the most out of the car. >We have always been treated like second-rate citizens. When I have had >problems with their gear dropping the line (in the middle of a call, >unprovoked!) they simply said "oh well, we'll look into it". Even an offer >of active assistance (ie: you tell me when, I'll initiate a call and you >watch for what goes wrong) was refused. Again, you don't HAVE to use it. >Remember the horrid problems with billed usage (like calls when there was no >physical means for them to have been made) when they finally got their billing >computer working? (Working? Well, almost.) I've had the service almost since its introduction and have never had a problem with billing. (However, I've had numerous errors on both my MCI and Bell billing. Ugh.) >Telenet also took advantage of the PC Persuit subscriber base in their quest >to block the recent FCC action -- regardless of how you slice it, without >PC Persuit there would NOT have been that massive letter campaign to the >FCC offices and Congresspersons! Did you write a letter? Were you protecting YOUR interests, or Telenet's? -- Carlos Manuel Abreu MASE CSE CDP CCP /---------/ Cyberphilia/NYC (212) 431-0434 /----------------------------------------/428 Broome Street, New York, NY 10013
root@chessene.UUCP (This System) (01/05/89)
In article <7353@chinet.chi.il.us>, ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson) writes:
+ Well, you are correct that Telenet did not correctly estimate the number of
+ subscribers they would be getting and/or the amount of usage each would
+ generate. It never occurred to them that people would make 'unlimited' use
+ of the service to the extent of 1000+ hours per month.
That's a neat trick. 31 * 24 = 744.
Nitpick, nitpick, nitpick. I'm sorry. I won't do it again.
(Not today, anyway :-)sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) (01/05/89)
In article <441@marob.MASA.COM> cabreu@marob.masa.com (Carlos Cabreu) writes: >In article <580@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu> jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) writes: >>Instead they kept adding features. And adding customers. Can you >>say "Bait and switch"? I can just see the marketing guys up on >>the 25th floor with smiles from ear to ear. As a fairly impartial observer (we don't get it up here in Canada) I'd have to agree with this last statement. Basically PC-Pursuit was product with specific characteristics: unlimited use during certain time periods fixed price per month The New and Improved PC-Pursuit has *different* characteristics: unlimited use during certain time periods price based on use, scaled to amount of use This is not the same product. It is a *new* product. They just are giving it the same name. And switching all of the old product's customers over to using new product. Just 'cause the say it's the same product doesn't mean that it is. -- Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca {ubc-cs,uunet}!van-bc!sl Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) (01/05/89)
In <441@marob.MASA.COM>, cabreu@marob.masa.com (Carlos Cabreu) wrote: > [...] Realizing the potential of the product, they've improved it, > and plan to continue it. The price hike was simply long overdue. I've seen no evidence that the product is substantially improved. It is still slow, difficult to use and mostly undocumented. The real problem for me is GTE's past billing problems. I would be willing to risk charges on > 30 months, but I am not willing to risk GTE managing to get the billing correct. Sprint and PC Puruit have both been famous in the past for billing problems. -- James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die" DCC Corporation 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759 512-338-8789
jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) (01/06/89)
In article <2625@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: | Telenet also took advantage of the PC Persuit subscriber base in their quest | to block the recent FCC action -- regardless of how you slice it, without | PC Persuit there would NOT have been that massive letter campaign to the | FCC offices and Congresspersons! | Incorrect. I sent telegrams after being made aware of the threat through Compuserve, Delphi, and Genie. PC Pursuit was probably exceeding Telenet's capacity to provide the service. Since PC Pursuit doesn't actually pay for itself, Telenet had to do something to discourage usage that *they* considered excess. They aren't going to go out and buy more capacity for a service which doesn't pay for itself. jim-- Jim Budler address = uucp: ...!{decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim OR domain: jim@eda.com #define disclaimer "I do not speak for my employer" Happy New Year
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (01/06/89)
In article <442@marob.MASA.COM> cabreu@marob.masa.com (Carlos Cabreu) writes: >In article <2625@ddsw1.MCS.COM> karl@ddsw1.UUCP (Karl Denninger) writes: > >>They are still making money off their PC Persuit service I'd bet -- but now >>they want to make more money -- a whole lot more. > >That's the American way. Any of us in their shoes would do the same thing. Yep. And if they hadn't promoted PC Persuit as a "unlimited use" service _for small businesses_ right up until the announcement of fee upgrade, and had delivered what they did promise when they promised it (2400 baud access, for one) I wouldn't complain at all (but I'd still cancel my subscription as economically indefensible). >>If thousands of people do the analysis I've done, though, they may lose >>all their subscribers instead and be back to where they were before PC >>Persuit at night (fixed leased lines cost $, regardless of use!) :-) > >You're speaking Net-traffic here. The bulk of their subscribers are >individuals. To the individual it's a great deal. Not really. If you use less than 4-5 hours you should buy it long-distance -- it's cheaper. If you use more than 30 you're again cheaper on the long-distance lines before long. Only if you fit between 5 <> 30 hours a month, every month, and DON'T PAY LOCAL ACCESS FEES is PC Persuit a good deal. For everyone else it's a very poor buy at the "updated" rates. This "everyone else", by the way, means the entire Chicago area (with a few lucky exceptions right downtown on the lake) and I suspect most other major metro areas (where Telenet makes money on this service) as well. The entire argument also goes out the window if you stay connected for hours trying to get through to the target city. We attack-dial (smart dialer scripts) and it still fails to some areas after more than 30 minutes of trying. Under the new system we will be metered for that half hour, and it will count towards the "30 hours" allotted. I can easily see spending half of your 30 hours on busy signals and "BUSY"s from the network (no outdial ports). No other network I pay to use has ever tried to charge me for a "busy". >>Not if you have more than a 1200 baud modem it isn't. Tell you what -- >>let's look .... (figures and rationalization here). (entire argument is pointless if you pay local access charges or with congested outdial ports, see above) >>Telenet also took advantage of the PC Persuit subscriber base in their quest >>to block the recent FCC action -- regardless of how you slice it, without >>PC Persuit there would NOT have been that massive letter campaign to the >>FCC offices and Congresspersons! > >Did you write a letter? Were you protecting YOUR interests, or Telenet's? I wrote a letter. As for who's interests I was protecting, mine, of course. Or so I thought. What actually occurred is that I (and several thousand others) were misled by Telenet on this issue. The impact that was predicted for this "electronic cottage" may hit after all..... but Telenet will receive the revenue under this alternate plan instead of the BOC's..... IF people stay connected. I suspect that for the Usenet people, Telebit (Not Telenet!) will end up a major beneficiary due to increased modem sales. :-) The real losers will be the heavy individual users (who can't afford the up-front cost of a Telebit) and the less-well funded individual networks -- Fidonet being one. How convenient a twist from what would have otherwise been a business disaster for Telenet, and what a wonderful example of manipulating the populace (mainly the Fido people) to their own detriment. Note that we're dropping the Telenet service, but the change is very close to cost-neutral for us (we'll just talk LD at 19200 only, 'tis all). For some others it won't be that simple. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl) Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality solutions at a fair price"
dan-hankins@cup.portal.com (Daniel B Hankins) (01/08/89)
I happen to be one of those individual users; not particularly heavy,
but heavy enough not to be able to afford the price increase.
Therefore, I have been considering turning my Amiga into a UUCP node,
and getting a feed from somewhere. Unfortunately, I live in the middle of
IBM-land (New York's mid-Hudson Valley), and although there are several
universities a local call away, all of them are on BITNET. All the UUCP
sites I could find in the maps are a long distance call away.
So, I ask: What's the least expensive way of getting a very limited
feed (like comp.sys.amiga[.tech], comp.binaries.amiga, and comp.lang.misc)?
What are UUNET's rates like? Where should I look?
If this is not the proper newsgroup in which to ask this question, what
is?
Dan Hankinsjpdres10@usl-pc.usl.edu (Green Eric Lee) (01/09/89)
In message <7354@chinet.chi.il.us>, ptownson@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick Townson) says: >You say they are charging 'premium rates'. $1 per hour as of 2/1/88 and >pennies per hour over the past three and a half years are NOT premium >rates. Telenet usually charges $10-14 per hour to their mostly daytime >corporate customers. I have no problem with $1 per hour. I do have a problem with the rapidly escalating rates -- $4.50/hour, then $7.50/hour. I use PC Pursuit to call BBS's. I average about 60 hours a month. I'd be quite willing to pay for such usage, but not at rates that make Ma Bell look great. Getting a Trailblazer, Reach Out America ($7.10/hour after the first hour) and a limited personal newsfeed for myself would make better sense than using PC Pursuit after the first 30 hours. Apparently Telenet realized that, too, because they quickly amended their rates to say "you can now have multiple accounts." Yeah. Sure. But it's a pain in the #$%#$% >Yes, they do charge as of the second they receive your valid ID entered >on line. It usually takes me about 30 minutes of heavy demon-dialing to get through to a BBS.... >PCP was 'invented' when some marketing types found they had a network which >was virtually deserted at night and on weekends, and that they could peddle >that unused capacity to personal users with no adverse effect on their >bread and butter customers at all. As stated above, they got more than they >bargained on; sometimes at night and on weekends the network has as much >traffic as on an average weekday. Obviously, Telenet needed to do something. Unlimited usage simply bred too much abuse. I expected them to set a cap, and hourly rates for usage in excess of that cap. I did NOT expect them to set those hourly rates higher than is available via AT&T. Note that since 70% is a good file-transfer throughput via Telenet, and because AT&T doesn't charge until after connection, if you're calling long distance BBS's AT&T becomes more economical after 30 hours even if you're stuck at a lowly 2400 baud (at 9600 baud, Telenet would have to charge around $1.36/hour to be competitive). I have heard rumors that Tymnet is now thinking about offering a competing service, now that Telenet has dropped the ball so badly. I hope that they carefully survey the market, and offer rates which a) accurately reflect their costs (this was PC Pursuit's big problem -- FairyLand rates) and b) are competitive with anything out there. -- Eric Lee Green P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509 {ames,mit-eddie,osu-cis,...}!killer!elg, killer!usl!elg, etc.
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (01/11/89)
In article <158@usl-pc.usl.edu> writes: >I have heard rumors that Tymnet is now thinking about offering a >competing service, now that Telenet has dropped the ball so badly. I >hope that they carefully survey the market, and offer rates which >a) accurately reflect their costs (this was PC Pursuit's big problem >-- FairyLand rates) and b) are competitive with anything out there. I hope they do. In Chicago, Tymnet has indial ports all over the place -- in fact, we're in the "boonies" and have a Tymnet node less than 5 miles from this location. Telenet, a few years ago (2-3), pulled ALL THEIR SUBURBAN NODES. As a result I have to dial downtown to Chicago -- at a cost of nearly $3.00/hour, just to get connected. A couple of years ago I could call Arlington Heights for a nickel, and talk to Telenet. Not any more. Telenet told me that "Illinois Bell made us move the lines", and IBT said "Hogwash, telenet did it for their own reasons". Someone wasn't dealing straight with me..... If Tymnet offers anything even close to PC Persuit, we'll sign up immediately. They have been VERY helpful when I had problems with their network a while back (we were using it to connect to another site which has a PAD hooked to them). Their technical assistance was (1) right on the ball, (2) prompt, we got right through to a tech, and (3) courteous. Telenet has managed none of the above. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl) Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality solutions at a fair price"
patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) (01/11/89)
In article <158@usl-pc.usl.edu> writes: > >I have no problem with $1 per hour. I do have a problem with the >rapidly escalating rates -- $4.50/hour, then $7.50/hour. > >I use PC Pursuit to call BBS's. I average about 60 hours a month. I'd >be quite willing to pay for such usage, but not at rates that make Ma >Bell look great. Getting a Trailblazer, Reach Out America ($7.10/hour >after the first hour) and a limited personal newsfeed for myself would >make better sense than using PC Pursuit after the first 30 hours. Telenet rates: 30 x $1 = $30 30 x $4.50 = $135.00 Total 60 hours = $165.00 AT&T Reach Out 60 x 7.10 = $426.00 Who comes up looking great? >It usually takes me about 30 minutes of heavy demon-dialing to get >through to a BBS.... And a one minute forgiveness will be standard from now on. In other words, Telenet is saying if you get a busy signal, or a dead modem, whatever, if you will *immediatly* disconnect, within one minute, the time will not be counted. > >Obviously, Telenet needed to do something. Unlimited usage simply bred >too much abuse. I expected them to set a cap, and hourly rates for >usage in excess of that cap. I did NOT expect them to set those hourly >rates higher than is available via AT&T. Note that since 70% is a good >file-transfer throughput via Telenet, and because AT&T doesn't charge >until after connection, if you're calling long distance BBS's AT&T >becomes more economical after 30 hours even if you're stuck at a lowly >2400 baud (at 9600 baud, Telenet would have to charge around >$1.36/hour to be competitive). Maybe, maybe not. There have been disputes on the Net Exchange about the throughput rate for as long as I have read it. Not everyone shares your statistics. You make a good point though, however as I said above, Telenet will not charge for the first minute. They will not charge when you are at the network prompt (@) waiting to go somewhere. The charging will be done *when you connect somewhere until you disconnect back to the network*. >I have heard rumors that Tymnet is now thinking about offering a >competing service, now that Telenet has dropped the ball so badly. I >hope that they carefully survey the market, and offer rates which >a) accurately reflect their costs (this was PC Pursuit's big problem >-- FairyLand rates) and b) are competitive with anything out there. Tymnet has had an outdial service for several years, but it is used by commercial customers (as was Telenet's until PCP started.) Tymnet currently gets several bucks per hour for their outdials, AND they charge for the cost of the telephone call off net as well. In fact, they charge 110% of telco rates; the extra 10% being for their 'service charges'. -- Patrick Townson patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / US Mail: 60690-1570 (personal zip code) FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) / MCI Mail: 222-4956
halloran@althea.UUCP (Robert Halloran) (01/12/89)
In article <7428@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes: >In article <158@usl-pc.usl.edu> writes: >> >>I have no problem with $1 per hour. I do have a problem with the >>rapidly escalating rates -- $4.50/hour, then $7.50/hour. >> >>I use PC Pursuit to call BBS's. I average about 60 hours a month. I'd >>be quite willing to pay for such usage, but not at rates that make Ma >>Bell look great. Getting a Trailblazer, Reach Out America ($7.10/hour >>after the first hour) and a limited personal newsfeed for myself would >>make better sense than using PC Pursuit after the first 30 hours. > >Telenet rates: 30 x $1 = $30 > 30 x $4.50 = $135.00 Total 60 hours = $165.00 > >AT&T Reach Out 60 x 7.10 = $426.00 > >Who comes up looking great? Actually, AT&T plus a Trailblazer. Remember, the Telebit works at 9600 baud with error correction. The 60 hours over PCP drops to 7.5 (actually I seem to recall that the Reach Out plan charges in full hours, so it's 8). The comparison becomes: New PCP: 60 hours @ 1200 $165.00 AT&T+TB: 8 hours @ 9600 $ 56.80 Given that the T1000 (9600 with spoofing, w/out compression) goes for $800 list, you'd recover the cost of the replacement modem in about seven months. If the rumor that Telebit is about to have another half-price promotion for disgruntled PCP users is true, the TB+ (add 19.2K in, on-the-fly compression) would go for about $675 for the external unit; you'd recover that cost even sooner. Bob Halloran ========================================================================= UUCP: {allegra,att}!althea!halloran USPS: 17 Lakeland Dr, Port Monmouth NJ 07758 DDD: 201-495-6621 eve ET Quote: "May: In Baton Rouge, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, announcing that he has been forgiven by the Lord, returns to his pulpit, where he receives a warm reception from 300 billion locusts." - Dave Barry's 1988 Year-In-Review
sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) (01/12/89)
In article <7428@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes: >In article <158@usl-pc.usl.edu> writes: >> >Telenet rates: 30 x $1 = $30 > 30 x $4.50 = $135.00 Total 60 hours = $165.00 > >AT&T Reach Out 60 x 7.10 = $426.00 > >Who comes up looking great? >Maybe, maybe not. There have been disputes on the Net Exchange about the >throughput rate for as long as I have read it. Not everyone shares your >statistics. You make a good point though, however as I said above, Telenet For uucp the *absolute* best I ever get under 220 cps. My only regular long distance contact is uunet, I consistently get over 840 cps for large files (>30kb). So assuming best stat's for PC Pursuit (which most correspondents declare as impossible to get) and only average stat's for Trailblazer. Basically about as close to 4 to 1 as you can get (aside, I only talk to Trailblazer at 9600bps, when I switch over to the 386 stats go up a fair bit). This gives us a weight cost of 165*4 or $660 for the same amount of data. Who comes up looking great, indeed! And if you use the stats that other people have posted and assume a 19.2 bps Trailblazer connection there isn't any comparison. I would go so far as to say that for bulk data transport it is virtually impossible for any profitable X.25 network pricing scheme to beat a Trailblazer on Long Distance dialup. -- Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca {ubc-cs,uunet}!van-bc!sl Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) (01/12/89)
In article <7428@chinet.chi.il.us> patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes: >Telenet rates: 30 x $1 = $30 > 30 x $4.50 = $135.00 Total 60 hours = $165.00 > >AT&T Reach Out 60 x 7.10 = $426.00 > >Who comes up looking great? Let's compare apples with apples... $165/60hrs ---------- = $6.67 / MByte (Assuming 100% efficiency) 1200 bps $426/60hrs ---------- = $2.15 / MByte (With *only* 100% efficiency) 9600 bps I, as many others, do not have a 2400 bps indial. Some nodes do not yet have 2400 bps outdials. Even with 2400, ATT comes out ahead. Plus MNP-capable modems can actually exceed 9600bps. PCPursuit will, for the forseeable future, not have MNP available to customers. Yes, you must pay for the new modem. But you now have access to the entire world, not 30-some cities.
donegan@stanton.TCC.COM (Steven P. Donegan) (01/12/89)
In article <7428@chinet.chi.il.us>, patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes: > > Telenet rates: 30 x $1 = $30 > 30 x $4.50 = $135.00 Total 60 hours = $165.00 > > AT&T Reach Out 60 x 7.10 = $426.00 > > Who comes up looking great? > Using a Telebit Trailblazer over AT&T's service you get about 4 times as much data transfered per hour when compared to Telenet's PC-Pursuit. 60 hours at 2400 baud on PC-Pursuit = $165.00 15 hours at 9600 baud on AT&T = $106.50 Saving about 58.50 per month - a clear winner for operations costs. Telenet throughput, even on a good day, does not really reach the 240 bytes per second your 2400 baud modem is capable of. The Trailblazer often exceeds 960 bytes per second (on dial-up's to Singapore from LA we often exceed 11000 bits/sec or 1100 bytes/sec). 13.2 hours at 11000 baud on AT&T = $93.72 - saving 71.28 per month or more depending on how bad the throughput on PC-Pursuit really is :-) -- Steven P. Donegan These opinions are given on MY time, not Area Telecommunications Engineer Western Digital's Western Digital Corp. stanton!donegan || donegan@stanton.TCC.COM || donegan%stanton@tcc.com
David_W_Tamkin@cup.portal.com (01/13/89)
From Karl Denninger's <2678@ddsw1.MCS.COM>: | In article <158@usl-pc.usl.edu> [name missing] writes: | >I have heard rumors that Tymnet is now thinking about offering a | >competing service, now that Telenet has dropped the ball so badly. I | >hope that they carefully survey the market, and offer rates which | >a) accurately reflect their costs (this was PC Pursuit's big problem | >-- FairyLand rates) and b) are competitive with anything out there. | | If Tymnet offers anything even close to PC Pursuit, we'll sign up | immediately. They have been VERY helpful when I had problems with their | network a while back (we were using it to connect to another site which has | a PAD hooked to them). Their technical assistance was (1) right on the ball, | (2) prompt, we got right through to a tech, and (3) courteous. Tymnet has been soliciting input from potential customers for a PCP-like service. Originally they were accepting telephone calls, but after half a day they saw that the number of calls and duration of each would take up more of their reps' time than they could spare, so they have asked us to send paper mail instead. The address is TYMNET 2560 N. First Street San Jose, California 95161-9019 Attention: Ms. Eva Cabness, Mail Stop F32 David_W_Tamkin@cup.portal.com ... sun!portal!cup.portal.com!David_W_Tamkin
urjlew@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Rostyk Lewyckyj) (01/13/89)
Telebit Trailblazers are nice, but
there needs to be one at both ends to get the benefits.
What fraction of the services that PCP customers dial, have or would
get sufficient trailblazers to make that suggestion realistic?
-----------------------------------------------
Reply-To: Rostyslaw Jarema Lewyckyj
urjlew@ecsvax.UUCP , urjlew@tucc.bitnet
or urjlew@tucc.tucc.edu (ARPA,SURA,NSF etc. internet)
tel. (919)-962-9107elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (01/15/89)
in article <7428@chinet.chi.il.us>, patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) says: $ In article <158@usl-pc.usl.edu> writes: $> $>I have no problem with $1 per hour. I do have a problem with the $>rapidly escalating rates -- $4.50/hour, then $7.50/hour. $> $>I use PC Pursuit to call BBS's. I average about 60 hours a month. I'd $>be quite willing to pay for such usage, but not at rates that make Ma $>Bell look great. Getting a Trailblazer, Reach Out America ($7.10/hour $>after the first hour) and a limited personal newsfeed for myself would $>make better sense than using PC Pursuit after the first 30 hours. $ Telenet rates: 30 x $1 = $30 $ 30 x $4.50 = $135.00 Total 60 hours = $165.00 $ AT&T Reach Out 60 x 7.10 = $426.00 $ Who comes up looking great? AT&T. I would spend 10 hours downloading at ~12,000 baud, instead of 60 hours at around 1800 baud (best I've seen with UUCP). For a total of $71. Looks a lot better than $165.00, eh? And doesn't even tie up my phone line for 2 hours a night! With that kind of savings, the Trailblazer would pay for itself in only a year (nearly $100/month savings? Wow!). But, since Telenet now allows purchasing more 30-hour blocks, I can get two 30-hour chunks for $60. This is MARGINALLY better than what I'd pay with the Trailblazer ($71). Obviously, buying a Trailblazer just to bypass Telenet isn't cost-effective. BUT, if you already have the Trailblazer, for other uses, you're likely to come out about the same whether you use the New Improved PC Pursuit or AT&T Reach Out America, due to the tediousness of having to keep up with two totally seperate accounts. $ Maybe, maybe not. There have been disputes on the Net Exchange about the $ throughput rate for as long as I have read it. Not everyone shares your $ statistics. You make a good point though, however as I said above, I average around 90% throughput using Zmodem for downloading. But Zmodem is much more efficient than UUCP, because UUCP windows are so ridiculously small. From what I have heard, 70-75% is good for UUCP over PC Pursuit, even using large windows (8 or more). $ Tymnet has had an outdial service for several years, but it is used by $ commercial customers (as was Telenet's until PCP started.) You mean commercial customers actually paid COMMERCIAL RATES for Telenet's outdial service? Will the wonders ever cease! I guess it WOULD be a good bargain when 2 conditions are met, though: a) a single hour per night, and b) calling a known, central, non-busy number (e.g. the central mainframe, with its dozens of dialin ports). For that kind of use, going to a dedicated solution (e.g. digital data service, as discussed on the Telcom-Digest recently) obviously is not cost-effective. $ patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / US Mail: 60690-1570 (personal zip code) -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.
elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) (01/15/89)
in article <6230@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, urjlew@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Rostyk Lewyckyj) says: > Telebit Trailblazers are nice, but > there needs to be one at both ends to get the benefits. > What fraction of the services that PCP customers dial, have or would > get sufficient trailblazers to make that suggestion realistic? > ----------------------------------------------- There's a large number of USENET sites currently using PC Pursuit, most of them out there in the margins (the "boondocks", so to speak). All the major USENET feeds seem to use Trailblazers. You can expect the percentage to go up rapidly as the marginal sites either upgrade or get off the net. As for me -- I currently get my netnews via PC Pursuit. This is my major use of PC Pursuit -- otherwise I'd use it less than 30 hours/month. A friend who is in the process of upgrading his system to a 68020 and Unix Sys V is willing to start a "USENET pool", whereby everybody interested locally can pool their money to get the newsgroups they want (note that the "pool" will ripple out further in the local area, since most of us have PCs capable of acting as leaf sites, such as my Amiga). In the event this happens, it looks like such access will be MUCH cheaper than using the New Improved PC Pursuit. -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509 Netter A: In Hell they run VMS. Netter B: No. In Hell, they run MS-DOS. And you only get 256k.