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From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,comp.protocols.nfs
Subject: Re: Question about Internet access
Message-ID: <1991May21.041302.23066@Think.COM>
Date: 21 May 91 04:13:02 GMT
References: <1991May20.150134.11699@panix.uucp>
Sender: news@Think.COM
Reply-To: barmar@think.com
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
Lines: 47

In article <1991May20.150134.11699@panix.uucp> joseph@panix.uucp (Joseph R. Skoler) writes:
>I'm associated with a large (nationwide) tractor-trailer distributor,
>and would like to know what benefit it would be to the company for it
>to get Internet access.
>
>This is really a broader question of what benefits all companies have
>by being connected.
>
>I suppose one benefit is the connectivity between each of its branches.
>But, I assume there's much more to be gained.

Yes, connectivity of branches is one benefit, although you could achieve
this relatively easily with leased lines connecting your branches.  And
this would be more secure, since you wouldn't be sharing this network with
lots of other people.

One benefit of connecting to the Internet is professional management of the
cross-country links, and potentially increased reliability.  The Internet
has many redundant paths, with the intent of providing almost full
connectivity even when individual links are down.

By connecting to the Internet you potentially gain data connectivity to
other companies with which you do business.  You also gain connectivity to
organizations that provide access to databases or other services.
Currently there aren't too many of these (things like Compuserve and Dow
Jones are currently on dialup networks such as Tymnet and Telenet), but
more are popping up.

For those of us in the R&D industry, we get connectivity to universities.

>Also, how does a large corporation become connected?  Would local 
>colleges be willing (in general) to give out some internet addresses?

In general, you can't just get Internet addresses from local colleges.
They are generally connected to government-subsidized research & education
networks, so their links can't be used for commercial purposes.  Many of
these networking providers also prohibit subscribers from reselling the
service to third parties.

There are a few commercial networking providers.  The two I know of offhand
are PSInet and Alternet.  Sorry, I don't know phone numbers offhand.

-- 
Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com
{uunet,harvard}!think!barmar