BD: Re: SCN: "Free-Nets" in Los Angeles Times

[Steve Guest]

Patrick
Agreed - low cost affordable internet access would be great.  In fact,in
the WA area we are lucky we still have a few options for free service.
They are going fast.  The options are NetZero/Juno which have a 10 hour
per month free but you must click some ads to stay alive.  Then we have
dotnow, address, massmednet and qualguard offering variations on the free
service theme.  Then finally we have NoCharge which is still here in WA
alive and kicking, but all its other operations seem to have shut down for
one reason or another.  Lastly nopay, who were the other free WA ISP, seem
to have stopped their free service without an announcement.  The web site
is there, but nothing about the access.

If you want better service we have accesscheap at $60 a year and 17 others
at under $100 a year.  The challenge is that we, SCN, should not be seen
to push one service over any other.  Apart from the possible liability
issues, we cannot and must guarentee thrid party connections.

It depends what you are willing to put up with.  Most of these have banner
or pop ads, no matter what the fee size and structure.

Steve

On Fri, 21 Dec 2001, patrick wrote:

> I think the point I had was low-cost internet service. Affordable
> internet service.
>
> Not that I think SCN should go there. If it did, that would be nice,
> but that would be a long way off anyway.
>
> It would be nice if Seattle had a non-profit internet service. In the
> sense that it was paid for by the local community, users, and not
> developed to make lots of money.
>
> Affordable internet service is an issue, not computers. Computers aer
> cheap, free, but service to the internet is not free, nor is it
> cheap.
>
> Unless you go to the library and use it for free.
>
> Having internet service for $104 a year would really put it within
> the reach of a lot of people. Currently, at $20 a month, it's a bit
> expensive.
>
> Patrick
<snip>

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