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	Rex Ballard
	Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
	Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
	the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.


On Thu, 18 May 1995, Vin Crosbie wrote:

> >From: ricman@iglou.com (Ric Manning)
> >Our editors are leaning toward getting AOL accounts for reporters to use.
> >Two main reasons: 1) The price isn't bad  and 2) one account can be split
> >among 5 users with each getting an individual e-mail address. They are 
> >assuming the AOL will give reporters reasonable access to most of the 
> >Internet tools and services that they might need.

AOL is oriented toward the casual consumer user.  As a reporter, you want 
to be able to quickly and routinely cross-reference across the largest 
possible bank of resources in the shortest possible time.  AOL is NOT 
primarily in the business of the Internet (yet).  Why settle for a seat 
on a bus that comes by once/hour when you can get an automobile.  Which 
would give you a true sense of the convenience of the road/highway system?

> >My questions: Do you see any major flaws in that approach?  
> >Is anybody using AOL in a newsroom setting who could share 
> >their opinions on its usefulness?

You will have 5 people dialing in many times during the day and night.  
You would be better off to put a trail-blazer modem/router on an ethernet 
and use a single dial-up.  A UNIX (any flavor), Linux (easiest), or 
WindowsNT (politically correct), providing ethernet and PPP dial-up and 
acting as a fire-wall is a good second level approach.  Use this when the 
demand get more intense.  You can use multiple modems or upgrade to 
frame-relay as your bandwidth demand increases (3-6 months).

The first time a user leaves his modem off hook through a $6/hour 
connection while using a $3/hour account for a week-end, you will look at 
the price of the direct connection (Netcom, on-ramp/pipeline, or local 
ISP) and wonder why you thought it was so expensive.  Audit your phone 
bills now, you may be spending several hundred/month in internet access 
charges and not even know it.

> Internet research tools, such as Archie, Vernonica, Gopher, Yahoo, Lycos, 
> etc., are easy to use in their individual Mac and Windows forms, or you can 
> use ALL of them through a single program such as Netscape (or any other 
> browser that supports forms).

Although you can get Most of that via aol, you will find limitations and 
quirks, not to mention a dependency on the remote service.  If you 
provide your own server locally, you can manage the access in both 
directions.  Most providers will be happy to direct you to consultants 
who can configure your system for you for very reasonable prices.

> One Internet account can be split among MORE than five users and everyone can 
> get an individual e-mail address (at least, with the Netmanage Chameleon 
> package I bought off the computer store shelf). And many Internet access 
> providers offer volume rates far cheaper than equivalent AOL's basic time 
> rates (most offer $20-$30/mo. for 20-30 hrs, some now even offer unlimited 
> access for <$20/mo.).

You may also see inferior performance from AOL.  At one time, Delphi was 
bridging their VMS systems to the SUN internet interface via a connection 
that rarely yielded a net throughput of more than 2400 baud.

Finally, read the fine-print on your AOL account.  You might consider 
your business a single "household", but AOL may consider the 5 different 
surnames to be 5 different accounts once it determines that you are using 
it for business purposes.

> Vin Crosbie                             crosbie@well.com  

From rballard@cnj.digex.net Tue May 23 01:45:19 1995