Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!ames!amdahl!dlb!zygot!ditka!kls From: kls@ditka.UUCP (Karl Swartz) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: PC Pursuit, is it worth it with a TB+? Summary: sometimes PC Pursuit pays off Message-ID: <4869@ditka.UUCP> Date: 9 Oct 89 01:59:47 GMT References: <9713@chinet.chi.il.us> <1056@kimbal.UUCP> <7122@ki4pv.uucp> Reply-To: kls@ditka.UUCP (Karl Swartz) Organization: Inaction Central, San Jose, California Lines: 46 In article <7122@ki4pv.uucp> tanner@ki4pv.uucp (Dr. T. Andrews) writes: >The normal cost shown for PC-P is $1/hour. If you buy 60 hours for $50 it's about $0.83/hour, again assuming you use all the time you buy and don't have to pay to reach an in- dial. Let's assume you actually use only 30 of your 60 hours (and don't fall back to the 30 hour/$30 rate), so you're paying $0.0139 per minute. For comparison, AT&T's Reach Out America now runs $6.90/hour, or a cost of $0.115 per minute. At 1200 baud PC Pursuit (with uucicos patched to WINDOWS=7) can do about 109 CPS, giving a cost of $4.25 to transfer 1 megabyte. At 2400 baud it's about 220 CPS or $2.10/megabyte. The TB with Reach Out America can easily manage 1000 CPS or better, costing you the princely sum of $1.92/megabyte. That's better than PC Pursuit at even the fastest speed, which isn't available to many folks, and there's also the opportunity cost of only tying up your phone line (and serial port and modem) for one-fifth or one-tenth the time. And not having to deal with the jerks at Telenet has got to be worth something too. On the other hand, a mail-only link doesn't have much use for high volume transfers. Given a typical message size of a megabyte even 1200 baud PC Pursuit can do the transfer in under 10 seconds. But in this case there will be a minute, often two, of overhead to set up the conversation. Now the TrailBlazer costs you $0.23 to move that message, while PC Pursuit (at either speed) costs under $0.06, less than one-fourth the cost. The advantage is even bigger in a state like California which has exorbitant intrastate long distance charges. A two-minute call to Los Angeles from San Jose costs $0.35, over six times what the same call via PC Pursuit would cost. I despise Telenet, but the numbers don't lie. I use a TrailBlazer and Reach Out America for news feeds, but also maintain PC Pursuit for the mail connectivity which I want to keep. That's the best business decision given the options. -- Karl Swartz |UUCP {ames,lll-winken}!pacbell!ditka!kls 1-505/672-3113 |Internet kls@ebnextk.slac.stanford.edu 1-408/223-1308 |BIX kswartz "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." (Twain)