Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: Cost of Internet access Message-ID: Date: 4 Nov 90 21:56:31 GMT References: <1990Oct28.220432.521@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <132136@pyramid.pyramid.com> <1990Oct29.205244.2051@supernet.haus.com> <2650@cirrusl.UUCP> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 38 In-reply-to: mcb@presto.ig.com's message of 3 Nov 90 07:27:22 GMT On 3 Nov 90 07:27:22 GMT, mcb@presto.ig.com (Michael C. Berch) said: [ ... on cheaper Internet access ... ] mcb> Unless you meant some sort of access that would only be a few hours mcb> per day, which misses the main advantage of Internet access in the mcb> first place, which is real-time access to a large set of mcb> distributed resources. As an Internet user I can sit at my mcb> workstation during business hours and log in to remote accounts, mcb> FTP files to and from arbitrary locations all over the world, and mcb> send and receive mail that arrives in seconds or minutes. All these goodies COST MONEY. If you are the one signing the cheques and you are given an option between instant service during business hours at 3X and evenings at X, maybe you think more than three times about the choice. mcb> Dial-up SLIP or PPP on an after-hours batched basis can't offer those mcb> services and do not, to my mind, provide much of an advantage over mcb> dial-up UUCP. "Real" Internet access, to me, means real-time access. Note that dialup IP connections are indeed non batched -- it is applications that would be batched, waiting for the IP connection to be established. Just like sendmail does today wih SMTP. The difference between dialup IP and dialup UUCP is that UUCP can only be offline, while IP can also be online. The difference between dialup IP and direct link IP is that dialup IP does not give continuous access, but only on request. It is up to you do delay the request or not. So the issue is not batched vs. online, but continuous vs. on demand. Once we all have ISDN and IP over ISDN we will all have continuous IP at the same price as dialup IP; for now, dedicated lines offering continuous Internet connectivity are expensive... -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk