Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU!mwm From: mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike Meyer, I'll think of something yet) Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: Electronic Newspapers Message-ID: <8905090030.AA04820@violet.berkeley.edu> Date: 9 May 89 00:30:40 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 37 >> I have a feeling that >> cable is more expensive than 'phones, so it's liable to stay that >> way for some time. Actually, I suspect that feeling is false - or at least not as important as other factors. Both basic cable & basic phone service run about the same around here - $10/month. Of course, there are variations on the phone service for people on restricted budgets that make it cheaper - but you wouldn't want to use those for getting newspaper service anyway. A more important problem is that cable service isn't available in all parts of the country. >> I thought we were talking now and everyone, not tomorrow and the >> select few. I assumed we were talking a select few today and everybody tomorrow. And that the service was (like television, cable and the phone system), something it would cost money to use. As the few become the many, the costs should go down. At this point, there are probably about as many TVs per capita as telephones. That being the case, the methods used to deliver signals to a TV are logical things to look at for getting newspaper text to a computer. For example, the Express service doesn't charge a service fee, the charge for the box to tie the thing to your computer. Could such a service be used over standard broadcast media? That solves the problem of "not everybody having cable." Assuming that you could build the broadcast->RS232 interface for about the cost of the similar Xpress interface, costs would be about the same as the cost for a TV set (well between low-end color and B&W). Funding should be from the same source as the Express funding.