🚀 go-pugleaf

Josh Hildebrand <ren@bga.com> wrote:
>> Neva Smith (njsmith@bga.com) wrote:
>> 
>> : When spending an extedned period of time away from homebase, I'd like to 
>> : use a gateway local to that city/town to avoid long distance phone charges.
>Why not just have a 1-800 dialup number?

There are providers who offer 1-800 access.  They tend to be fairly
expensive w.r.t. hourly charges (not surprisingly).  (Provider lists
and ads are often posted on alt.internet.services.)  It's been awhile
since I was on the receiving end of a 1-800 line, but the costs are
usually fairly high.  It would probably be cheaper to pay the
long-distance rates to access a remote modem bank.

One option is to join one of the national online systems that provide
telnet access.  The advantage there is that they are usually accessible
via one of the X.25 networks like SprintNet that have dialups in most
cities.

I have a Delphi account that I use 1) when travelling, or 2) when I
want to use the eAAsy Sabre reservation system.  It costs $13/month to
keep the account.  I never use enough time that I have to pay extra.
The downsides are that you pay extra to use the dialups during
"business hours" and that their Internet services are pretty bad.  I
can usually tolerate the slow VMS machine well enough to run telnet
back to my home system though.

I recently saw an ad for a "more traditional" UNIX-based Internet
provider that had a connection to Sprint's X.25 dialup network.  I
don't remember what their rates were though.  The X.25 networks are
historically fairly "painful" to use in terms of latency, but it might
be an option for frequent travellers.

-dpm

-- 
 David P. Maynard, Carnegie Mellon University & Dependable Solutions
 USMail: 14312 Richard Walker Blvd, Austin, TX 78728-6862
 EMail: dpm@depend.com,  Tel: +1 512 251 8122,  Fax: +1 512 251 8308
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