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From: cactus@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu (Todd Masco)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.datacomm
Subject: Re: How much to connect to internet in the US? was Re: 19200bps
Keywords: 19200 bps
Message-ID: <13014@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 12 May 91 16:13:37 GMT
References: <1991May6.035952.18592@netcom.COM> <1991May8.234408.614@nic.csu.net> <1991May11.152852.13125@phoenix.pub.uu.oz.au>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon Physics
Lines: 32

In article <1991May11.152852.13125@phoenix.pub.uu.oz.au> hunter@phoenix.pub.uu.oz.au (James Gardiner [hunter]) writes:
>In <1991May8.234408.614@nic.csu.net> rkent@sparc1.sparc1.csubak.edu (Rick Kent (Student)) writes:
>Exactly how much does it cost per year to have say a 19200
>link or better connection (slip or whatever) into internet in the 
>US?

This'll probably be on the low end of the data points, but it cost my
(off-campus) room mates and me about $150 a semester before we managed
to get our employers to pick up the tab... split 3 ways, that's
entirely acceptable.  This is using the normal phone lines, giving us
(in essence) a dedicated direct line to a VAX on campus, from which we
run (Multinet) SLIP to a Sun3 in our house.  Our house Ethernet is
another matter which I won't go into. 

If the Phone Companies sees the need to provide the general public
with this service, I don't see how it could possible be more expensive
(economies of scale and so forth).  The system works well and is
basically break-even for around 300 "customers."  We only have
occasional outages, and those can be written up to the "experimental"
status of the project (though it's been pretty much stable over the
last two years).

With all this in mind, I don't see how it couldn't happen that in 20
years or so, *everybody* will have the ability to connect to a
"universal" net for reasonable costs.

The security issues will be amazing.


--
Todd L. Masco - CMU Physics   | "Free speech is the right to shout "theatre"
cactus@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu |   in a crowded fire."