Commercial Online Services

101 Online
                                                              $9.95/month, basic service

                                                                                      $10-$75/hour for advanced services

101 Online is based on French Minitel technology.  The advantage of this is that you can hook into the services of the French MiniTel system, making it an attractive way to do business in France. The disadvantage is that the service requires a MiniTel terminal, cannot be used via your personal computer, is very slow, and can be incredibly expensive.  The service is billed through Pacific Bell, and although the montly fee is only $9.95, advanced services (which comprise most of what is available)  are extra. One big problem with this is that charges for advanced services are not given on menu selections; you therefore don’t see the charge rate for the service until after you’ve made the menu selection. Oops! You’ve just accessed a $75/hour service, and therefore may have dropped a sawbuck before correcting your mistake.  No Internet gateway is available. 

101 Online, (800)310-1101

America Online                                                 
Mac: $5.95/month plus $5/hour non-prime
                                                                                     
Mac: $10/hour prime
                                                                                     
PC: 7.95/month plus $6/hour prime and non-prime

AOL is moderately priced, and offers a graphical user interface on both the Mac and PC (Geoworks).. There is now an Internet gateway, (aol.com) allowing you to send and receive mail from all over the world. However, the services are  neither as broad nor as deep as CompuServe, and a result many users get bored after trying it a while. 

Quantum Computer Services, America Online, 8619 Westwood Center Drive, Vienna, VA 22182; (703)448-8700, (800)227-6364 ext. 5181 (signup)

American PeopleLink
                                   $17.95/hour weekdays
                                                                                    
$5.95/hour (1200 bps, weekends and evenings)
                                                                                     $9.95/hour (2400 bps, weekends and evenings)
                                                                                    
$18.00/hour (9600 bps, weekends and evenings)

American PeopleLink has outstanding Amiga forums and software libraries.  There is no Internet gateway. 

American PeopleLink, 165 North Canal St., Suite 950, Chicago, IL 60606, (800)524-0100

AT&T Mail                                                          $3/month
                                                                                  
  $0.50/message, (1K or less)
                                                                                    
$0.80/message (1001 – 2K)
                                                                                     $0.95/message (2001 – 3K)
                                                                                     $0.05/additional 1K

AT&T Mail is a message oriented service that charges by the message, not by the hour. However, their rates are higher than MCI Mail.

AT&T Mail, (800)624-5672

BRS: After Dark                                               
$75 signon fee
                                                                                     
$12/month minimum fee

                                                                                     $10-25/hour

BRS is  a bibliographic online service.  No Internet gateway is available. 

BRS Information Technologies, 8000 Westpark Dr., McLean, VA 22102, (800)995-0906. 

CompuServe
                                                        $39.95 startup fee
                                                                                     
$7.95 basic service
                                                                                     
$12.60/hour (1200/2400 bps)

                                                                                     $22.50/hour (9600 bps)

CompuServe offers a tremendous number of services.  There are more vendor support forums on CIS than on any other service. Through IQUEST you can search trademark and other databases. In the financial arena, CIS services include onine brokerages such as Quick & Reilly and Max Ule, and access to corporate information via Standard & Poor’s Disclosure, Value Line, and Institutional Brokers’ Estimate System.  Since the monthly maintenance fee is only $2.50 (for which you receive the CompuServe magazine), many people keep an account around even though they hardly use it.  CompuServe’s Information Manager software, available for both Macintosh and Windows, allows access to a fraction of services via a graphical user interface; the remaining services are accessed via a terminal emulation window.  

The major complaint about CompuServe is its high price. However, I have noticed that once complainers become forum managers and get free accounts, their misgivings  vanish. CIS offers an Internet gateway. 

CompuServe, Inc., 5000 Arlington Centre Blvd.,P.O. Box 20212, Columbus, OH 43220, (800)848-8199

Delphi
                                                                   $5.95/monthly fee (includes first hour)

                                                                                     $6/hour
20/20 plan
                                                             $20/month for 20 hours

Delphi began as the Kussmaul online encyclopedia., but has since grown into a general purpose online service. Delphi aquired BIX from McGraw Hill last year. 

General Videotex Corporation, 3 Blackstone St., Cambridge, MA 02139; (800)544-4005

ECHO, New York
                                            first month free, $18.95/mo. unlimited use
                                                                                     
first month free, $9.95/mo. unlimited use 
                                                                                     
for students and seniors

A New York version of The WELL. Supports Caucus, and UUCP mail but no USENET. Since Echo isn’t on the Internet there is no telnet, or ftp.  

ECHO Communications Group, Inc., 97 Perry Street, Suite 13, New York, NY 10014, Voice:  (212) 255-3839, Online signup: (212)989-8411, (2400-8-N-1), email: horn@echo.uucp

GEnie
                                                                        $4.95/month for basic services, no startup fee

                                                                                     $6/hour non-prime for other services

                                                                                     $18/hour prime and high speed

GEnie is a general purpose online service that at one time was the least expensive online service. As a result it attracted a large number of support forums.  They also offer gateways to other services such as Dow Jones News  Retrieval. 

GE Information Services, 401 N. Washington St., Rockville, MD 20850; (800)638-9636

MCI Mail                                                              
$35/year startup fee 
                                                                                     
$0.50/message (500 bytes or less)
                                                                                     
$0.60/message (501 to 1K bytes)
                                                                                     
$0.10/additional 1K up to 10K
                                                                                     
$0.05/additional 1K for messages over 10K

MCI Mail was at one time the most popular mail service because it does not charge by the hour, only by the message.  Even today, MCI is a reasonable alternative for users who want to subscribe to ListServ’s, since you are not charged for receiving messages, only sending them. MCI has a gateway to Dow Jones News Retrieval. The service also now supports KERMIT, ZMODEM, and 9600 bps access. Discounts are available for heavy users via a $10/month “preferred pricing” plan. 

MCI Mail, 1111 19th Street N.W., Washington, DC 20036; (800)444-6245

Netcom, San Jose                                               
Dialup Account
                                                $17.50/month (invoiced)
Dialup Account                                                 (Auto-Billed)
$15.00/month

Netcom offers file transfer, electronic mail, distributed conferencing and access to the Internet. There are no hourly charges, and each account comes with a 5 Mb disk allocation. Since Netcom connects to a government sponsored network called NSFNet, users of the service must agree to comply with NSF guidelines on use of the NSFNet before being granted access to the service. 

Netcom, 4000 Moorpark Avenue, Suite 209, San Jose, CA 95117, (408)554-UNIX, Fax: (408)241-9145, data: (408)241-9760, email: bobr@netcom.com. Dialin access: Alameda: (510)865-9004, Pleasanton: (510)426-6860, Palo Alto: (415)424-0131, San Jose: (408)241-9792, Santa Cruz: (408)459-9851 

Prodigy                                                                   
$49.95 startup fee (with modem)
                                                                                     
$12.95/month, no hourly fee 
                                                                                     
(includes 30 messages)

Prodigy is the McDonald’s of online services: they’ve served the most customers, but it’s not exactly filet mignon. Prodigy supports a wide array of consumer oriented services;  however, file transfer was not supported until recently. There is now a charge  for email ($0.25) beyond the 30 messages offered within the basic package. The addition of this charge resulted in a highly publicized controversy. Prodigy uses the same interface on the PC and Mac which means that the Mac version does not support the Macintosh interface. 

Prodigy, 445 Hamilton Ave., White Plains, NY 10601; (800)776-3449

The WELL, Sausalito, CA                          
$15/month maintenance
                                                                                     
$2/hour (2400 bps)

                                                                                     $6/hour (9600 bps)
                                                                                     
$4/hour additional through CPN

The WELL offers a variety of conferences, as well as access to electronic mail, distributed conferencing, and the Internet. Located in Sausalito, the service attracts a very diverse clientele. 

The WELL, (415)332-4335; to register, call (415)332-6106 (2400 bps) and type NEWUSER at the login prompt. 

The World – Brookline, MA
                    $2/hour plus $5/month maintenance
 20/20 plan                                                           $20/month for 20 hours plus 2 Mb disk space
 disk space
                                                           $5/Mb/month

The World offers Internet access, including electronic mail, distributed conferencing, real-time chatting, file transfer, and many other services. Since World is hooked up to the Internet through the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX), a commercial alternative to NSFNet, there are no NSFNet restrictions to comply with. 

Software Tool and Die, 1330 Beacon Street, suite 215, Brookline, MA 02146, (617)739-0202, (617)739-9753 (data, 1200/2400/9600 baud, 7 bits, Even Parity, 1 Stop Bit), FAX: (617)739-0914; email: office@world.std.com, uunet!world!office