dattier@jolnet.orpk.il.us (David Tamkin) (02/06/89)
In Telecom Digest, volume 9, issue 49, our esteemed moderator wrote: T> Well, I got the Official Agreement in the mail over the weekend. There were T> a few 'minor points' I had not known about, and will discuss them in this T> message. Nothing is quite as simple as it seems. [items from the Agreement and Mr. Townson's comments thereupon] T> 3. PASSWORD/ID CHANGES: Starlink charges $20 for each time this is done. T> Telenet/PC Pursuit does not charge for password/user id changes at the T> present time, according to a lady I spoke with in their Customer Service T> group on Sunday night at 10 PM. The people at Customer Service are, as a rule, thoroughly unversed in P C Purs_it. PCP's Rate Schedules, both before and since the December 30, 1988, announcement, have included a $5 fee for replacing a password. This applies whether you have forgotten the previously issued one or just feel that you should have a change for security reasons. Moreover, a new ID must be issued as well: they have *no* provision for changing the password for an existing ID. T> 6. ABOUT THOSE TELCO CHARGES FROM THE OUTDIALER: Starlink was originally T> advertised saying that 'calls outside the local area' of each outdialer T> would be accepted and billed to your account at telco rates. I noted that T> in a conversation with a Tymnet sales rep some months ago, I was quoted T> 110 percent of telco; the surcharge covering billing administration, etc. T> But the Agreement said a little bit more on the subject: Here is just the T> way it reads: T> "In some cities, there are surcharges imposed by the local telephone T> company called MESSAGE UNITS. *These charges are also billed to you.* T> You are responsible for all long distance charges made from an outdial T> port to a host computer." T> End of quote. No kidding! Any telco NOT charging message units now? I am curious, though, about Starlink charges to DAF's. Is there any fee for DAF calls beyond the $1 or $1.50 per hour? That remains open. T> I can call via Reach Out America anywhere for 13 cents a minute without T> having data network charges on top of that!! In fact, Reach Out America charges only twelve cents per minute at night rates, and even if Starlink's throughput may turn out to be better than PCP's, it can- not be better than a direct phone call. Moreover, there are no kilocharacter charges for a data-heavy session of nothing but transfers of pre-batched material. T> My thinking now is that unless you are a *very, very casual user* of T> data networks, you would be best to stick with Telenet. And don't think for T> one minute that 'being able to make extended area calls via the outdialers' T> is going to be any bargain. There is one other case where Starlink is a clear bargain: for $US 4.00 per hour they accept calls from Tymnet Canada indials. For Canadians local to the indials (in Ville St. Laurent [near Montreal], Quebec City, Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener, Calgary, and Burnaby [near Vancouver]), this can be an incredible savings over DataPac rates to the Tymnet or Telenet gateway. For example, a Canadian calling People/Link via DataPac pays $US 24.95 per hour now. Via Starlink it is $US 4.00 for Starlink, $US 3.00 for People/Link on its local Chicago line, plus just over 1c per minute for a night-rate local call from the Tymnet outdialer in Chicago-Wabash to People/Link's direct number in Chicago-Canal West. Assuming that Starlink does not have a fee for DAF connections comparable to the cost of a local phone call when one calls from an outdialer, $US 6.00 at night ($4 to Starlink, $2 to CompuServe) for the communications surcharge to CompuServe is surely less than that for a DataPac call to CompuServe and perhaps less than that for a collect call from a Tymnet Canada indial. And Dr. T. Andrews wrote: A> The area codes shown on the comparison appear bogus. Neither A> Longwood nor Orlando are in 305 any more. The northern part of 305 A> got split off and is now 407. The list that put the Orlando/Longwood outdial in area code 305 and Detroit, Michigan, in the Central Time Zone came straight from Tymnet Information (log into any Tymnet indial as "information"). Starlink did not originate its content. David Tamkin dattier@jolnet.orpk.il.us. ...!killer!jolnet!dattier