blake@oddjob.uucp (Blake Farenthold) (05/30/89)
> [Moderator's Note:... Starlink does not appear to be any bargain > at all. Unfortunatly, there are few bargains left in this world. > Rather than worry about which calls are local and which are toll, > either sign up for PC Pursuit or use Reach Out. Reach out America _is_ a good deal for a lot of calls and I use it (to the tune of about $300/mo for my bbs to exchange mail). ROA may not, however, out-perform all of the alternatives. Reach Out Texas is a HUGE rip off. The time is way over priced. The Texas PUC doesn't seem to wanna let go of AT&T. > Regretably, Starlink is more expensive and less economical than > either of these other two options. I'm not SURE this is still true see below. > Telenet only charges $1 per hour with no telco surcharge. This is dead Wrong. The last letter I got from Telenet offered me 3 options for my PCPursuit account: Regular membership: 30 hours at $30. Family membership: 60 hours at $50 Handicapped membership: 90 hours at $30 Any useage over membership minimums are billed at _$3_ per hour. PCP was much nicer when I was a beta tester and it was free 24 hours a day. > Intrastate tolls from Starlink terminating modems are frequently > equal to or exceed, minute per minute, the charges for Reach Out > America. Yea that's what I wanna find out.. what tolls are associated with what calls. It really hacks me off no one at Starlink can tell me. And Why Oh Why cant the Bells just require you to dial a 1 if the call is gonna cost. > Read the issues mentioned and decide for yourself. PT] I read them when they came out. What convinced me to try Starlink was the fact they are now $1.50 / hr and have _cancelled the excess kilocharacter charges_ They also now go to a boat-load of cities. In Texas PCPursuit only goes into Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth. Starlink goes into Ammarillo, Arlington, Austin, Corpus Christi (my home town!), Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Ft. Worth, Houston, Killeen, San Antonio, and Waco. Starlink does, however maintain the 5 minute minimum per connection. This could add up in a hurry if you are trying to call a busy host system. If they'd do away with the 5 min minumum and give you the first minute free (so if the bbs is busy you can disconnect w/o incurring a charge) I'd dump PCP all together. Throughput on Starlink is appears to be faster than PCP but I havn't run any definitive tests. I don't work for anyone involved in this I just want cheap modem calls. ______ UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-party!blake@nosc.mil INET: blake@pro-party.cts.com Blake Farenthold | CIS: 70070,521 | Source: TCX023 P.O. Box 17442 | MCI: BFARENTHOLD | GEnie: BLAKE San Antonio, TX 78217 | BBS: 512/829-1027 | Delphi: BLAKE [Moderator's Note: My arithmetic has never been very good. In fact in school when the teacher claimed 'pies are squared' I told him he was a liar; that all the pies I have ever seen were round. But be that as it may, if Telenet charges $30 for 30 hours, that comes out to $1 per hour in my handy TI-58 calculator. And at $50 for 60 hours, that comes to 83 cents an hour. A dollar per hour or 83 cents per hour is less than $1.50 per hour. Unless or until you use more than 60 hours per month -- more than two hours per night each night of the month -- Telenet is still cheaper on an hourly basis. But that is not all. Those first 60 hours cost $50 on Telenet versus (60 x 1.50 = $90) on Starlink. The next 30 hours on Telenet cost ($3 x 30 = $90) versus ($1.50 x 30 = $45) on Starlink. So after 90 hours per month on the modem -- 3 hours per night -- we have spent $140 on Telenet versus $135 on Starlink. So 'savings' on Starlink don't even enter the picture until after around 88 hours per month. That is an awful lot of time on line for those of us who also work 40 hours a week and sleep a few hours each day. Finally, Telenet allows you to purchase multiple accounts; that is, 2 'family' accounts at $100 per month for 120 hours, or 3 at $150 per month for 180 hours, etc. PT]