Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: ont.uucp
Subject: Re: Bell drops data rates -- who wants to join private internet?
Message-ID: <65959@looking.on.ca>
Date: 22 Dec 89 17:29:50 GMT
References: <63100@looking.on.ca> <744@sce.carleton.ca>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 40
Class: discussion

(I would like to join the war against 90 character text lines!)

I would like to see ONET set up a policy for smaller firms, and have
asked about it several times, as have others.  Please let us know if
anything is going to happen.  Right now $1500/month is too much for
me, $500 per month would be ok.

But there is another reason for the private net.  Some of the traffic
I intend to send might be too commercial for Onet, which is a
research/education net.   Or does Onet not put any restrictions on
what traffic may transit it?

So a cheaper net with no restrictions would appeal to me, and others,
I would hope.

Also, we could cut the cost by starting without routers.  The biggest
site in town gets the direct connection to the outside world.  The price
they pay is either a router or some serial ports on one of their systems,
and extra traffic on that system.

Over my link, I would feed news, do SMTP and very rarely do FTP.  This
would not put on sufficient load to require a router, i think.  It will
cost a few CPU cycles at the place where I have my SLIP link, but not
that many.

When last checked, the line from Toronto to DC was $4K/month.  I don't
know if this is one of the prices to have come down.  But if 10 companies
shared it in the Toronto area, it could be pretty cheap.  Local 9600
bps leased lines are very cheap these days, at least where I live.  I
pay about $40/month for the one from my office to home.

Anyway, interest in this idea was small, although I heard that some
other people were looking into it independently, but I haven't heard back
from them.  So it is no likely to happen right away.

I would love to join ONET, I need no router to join as a leaf, so if
they can come up with something in the $500/month, and it's clear that
my sort of traffic is ok, let's go!
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473