Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!sharkey!atanasoff!jwright From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: FYI -- PC-P Price "Increase" Summary: The eternal fight against greed Message-ID: <572@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu> Date: 31 Dec 88 15:04:31 GMT References: Reply-To: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) Organization: Iowa State U. Computer Science Department, Ames, IA Lines: 74 Mild but angry flame of big business screwing the little guys. (No bad words (yet). :-) In article MVM@cup.portal.COM writes: >The attached letter is being sent to all PC Pursuit customers via >US Mail and constitutes 30 days notification of a change to the >PC Pursuit Terms and Conditions. > >o Outdial City Expansion. Nine new cities were added for a > total of 34. Additionally, all the cities now support 300, > 1200, and 2400 bps service. Big ******* deal. Everybody who doesn't have a 2400bps indial, raise your hand. Better yet, how about everyone who doesn't have a local indial? >o New Netline Exchange. The old 4 line PC-based Netline > Exchange bulletin board system was recently replaced with a > powerful minicomputer. The Netline Exchange is available 24 > hours a day at no charge to you and is the place to leave > all of your service questions and comments. I let my computer try to autodial the net exchange for three hours tonight, and never got through. (Roughly 2am to 5am, Friday) Seems that I'm not the only one who doesn't like this. I also challenge the bit about "powerful minicomputer". The thing can't handle more than five or six people online at once, and the only thing you can do is read messages or download text files. [It's a Sun with 20 lines. I bet the response is atrocious tonight :-] >When PC Pursuit was launched over three years ago, it was viewed >as a way for residential consumers and hobbyists to take >advantage of off-peak network time at a bargain price. The >growth and varied use that followed far exceeded expectations. So now it's time for greed to take over. Summary of old rate: $25/month Summary of new rate: $30/month + $4.50/hour + $7.50/hour 30..60 hours 60+ hours (All costs for non-primetime usage.) Online time of less than 34.5 hours results in a 100% rate increase. Remember, YOU PAY FOR BUSY SIGNALS. And consider that this wasn't all a one-way street. They were able to expand and *DEBUG* their service on the backs of PCP users. A lot of the PCP users know more about telecommunications than most (all?) of the people at Telenet. I doubt they could have gotten such an informed shakedown of the new equipment from their corporate customers. >We look forward to this exciting new year, and the improvements >it will bring. > >The input and support of our many thousands of satisfied >customers has helped shape the future of the PC Pursuit Service. >For this, we extend our deepest thanks. You have helped make PC >Pursuit the best end-user data communications value in the >industry. >Sincerely, >Peter Naleszkiewicz >Outdial Services Product Manager If you go ahead with this plan, you'll have to look forward to the new year WITHOUT ME. Hopefully the thousands of "satisfied" customers will once again shape the future of the PCP service. Please, everyone voice your displeasure with this. I have nothing against an honest rate increase, but this is outrageous. Just consider all of the people who will turn to USENET to satisfy their BBS fix. And how many sites get their newsfeed via PCP? Are you willing to live with this? Jim Wright Pissed-off User