🚀 go-pugleaf

kamamer@io.org (karl mamer) writes:
> geoff@zswamp.UUCP (Geoffrey Welsh) writes:
>> eye@interlog.com writes:
>> > This is the story of the 
>> > rise and fall of Toronto's first and most unique ISP.
>>
>> Hardly the first.  ONet was providing internet service to selected Toronto-
>> area organizations long before IO and probably deserves the title of 
>> "Toronto's first internet service provider".  If you meant affordable to 
>> the individual, say it... don't make misleading statements.
> 
> Seems a matter of semantics. Maybe he should have said "consumer". The
> implication was there.

That's easy for you and me to say, we know the facts (or, at least, some of 
them).  The text says "first ISP" which, as printed, is incorrect.  As I said 
in my post, if they meant 'affordable to the individual', then they should 
have said that.  There's more than a petty semantic difference between "first 
ISP" and "first to bring the internet within individuals' budgets". 

>> > In the archaic days of 1993, Toronto's only commercial "Internet 
>> > provider" was CRS -- which offered a pathetically bad PCBoard 
>> > interface to netnews and email.
>> 
>> Ignoring the fact that this statement contradicts the one above, how could 
>> Canada Remote Systems be "Toronto's only commercial Internet provider" 
> when 
>> they obtained their services from of UUNET Canada, the organization 
> probably 
>> best deserving the title "Toronto's first commercial Internet provider". 
> 
> You'll notice Internet provider is in quotes. In english, that implies 
> "Ummm, like, almost, sorta, but not quite." A BBS that provides news
> and mail isn't really an ISP, or at least an ISP as most people would 
> think of one.

Err, CRS' internet services were gopher and telnet, not news and e-mail via 
UUCP (which existed on many, many BBSes long before IO was around).  However, 
CRS is irrelevant; if IO was the first ISP (not qualified), how could CRS be 
the first commercial ISP and precede IO?  There's an inherent contradiction in 
the printed text.  There's also an overlooked fact, that CRS was a subscriber 
to an existing commercial ISP.  Come to think of it, wasn't IO's feed through 
UUNET, too?

> One could also describe Boeing as a commerical consumer plane maker, you 
> just have to have $25 million to buy one of their planes. UUnet doesn't 
> quite offer connectivity charges at a consumer level.

So, we should say that the guys who invented the ultralight aircraft were the 
first to build planes, because everyone from the Wright Brothers to Boeing 
built ones that were too expensive for consumers?

> Do they offer dial-up slip/ppp?

Absolutely.  I remember UUNET's Kitchener-Waterloo 'point of presence': a 56 
kbps line to Toronto, a Telebit NetBlazer, a handful of modems, and one 19200 
bps serial line to xenitec... all in XeniTec's office.  And, if it hasn't 
fallen apart by now, XeniTec probably still has the null modem I happened to 
have with me to make that connection. 

> What do they charge for UCCP? $6 an hour?

I was never a UUNET subscriber (though it came very close to being my only 
alternative), but I seem to remember $6 per hour plus $50/month.  19200 bps 
dedicated line ports were ~$600/month, about twice what Hookup now charges for 
a 64 kbps ISDN connection.

You may regard $6/hour as a completely different breed from today's $0.25/hour 
ISPs, but I see it as nothing more than a gradual decline in pricing due in 
part to consumers' willingness to accept lower levels of performance and 
service from third-tier providers.  Perhaps IO deserves the title of first 
third-tier ISP in Canada, but it was no more the first [commercial][consumer] 
ISP than Cantel's Amigo was the first mobile telephone. 

-- 
         Geoffrey Welsh, Senior Developer, InSystems Technologies Inc.
        geoff@zswamp.uucp, [xenitec.on.ca|m2xenix.psg.com]!zswamp!geoff
       We can only hope that people will outgrow the need for government
      before the government finishes outgrowing the need for the people.