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Another 2 cents:

ISPs are a bit like clothing stores.  There will always be K-Mart and 
Sears for the general population, but there are also about 200 clothing 
franchises and another 20-30 specialty stores within a few miles of 
almost every metropolitan area shopper - why?

While K-Mart and Sears offer a good selection at a competitive price, the 
smaller stores and franchises offer more interesting selection and a much 
more higher level of service.  If you want some advise on how best to
match your weekend attire, you can go to "Chess King" and an attractive
sales-clerk will give you fashion advise.

Service is also the distinguishing factor in restaurants (imagine if 
there were ONLY McDonald's).

Even if Microsoft becomes the "McDonald's" of the internet, there are so 
many service factors that come into play with an ISP, that it actually
may be common to have accounts with several ISPs just to have some of the
special services they offer.  I come into digex from my mgraw-hill 
connection because digex offers my certain service advantages. (more 
newsgroups, mail readers, ...)

There are many services available on the internet.  Connectivity is the 
smallest part of the issue.  As the deregulated telcos and cable 
companies vie for residential and small-business internet users, the need 
for the modem bank shops will deminish.  We will start seeing FRADs 
(Frame Relay Access Devices), CoDecs (Coder/Decoders for phone->frame),
ISPs that provide Internet voice to Analog phone service, and other
4-wire to ethernet type connections.

You want to have access to a News server (so you can share News), and a
mail-box (so you don't have to leave your machine on-line all the time).
You may want to have a web page or two.  Even with your own server, there 
are some "features" that are nice to delegate to other "expert servers".

Just about the time everyone thinks they have it "figured out", a whole 
new crop of services will start popping up.  Just as SoftWin became 
obsolete with the advent of Mosaic and Netscape, Netscape will eventually 
take a back-seat to someone elses "better server/client".


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



From rballard@cnj.digex.net Sun Jul  9 23:46:19 1995
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