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<DIV>Well said, Steve. And, YES, you are right about the library not being
able</DIV>
<DIV>to sustain your internet feed if your traffic increased. We are
already having</DIV>
<DIV>trouble with our bandwidth just with SCN in its present form combined
with</DIV>
<DIV>our own services. We would not be able to use public funds, which is
what</DIV>
<DIV>we pay for the Internet connection with, to support SCN's connection if
it</DIV>
<DIV>is more than a small fraction of our overall bandwidth
usage.<BR><BR>>>> steveg@scn.org 12/21/01 01:08PM
>>><BR>Hi<BR>Well first off we do have free dialup service. On
the other hand, this is<BR>basic command style access and not FREE Internet
access. I agree it would<BR>be great to offer such services, but we have
address some important issues<BR>first.<BR><BR>Let me try and explain why we do
not have free internet access.<BR><BR>1) If we were to offer free unrestricted
connections to the Internet via<BR>our free dial service and our SPL donated
connection to the Internet, then<BR>the traffic which SCN uses would jump
considerably. This would be<BR>followed by the lose of our donated
Internet feed, because currently I<BR>have been led to believe that the Library
would not be able to justify the<BR>cost of the service. This would mean
that we would have to provide our<BR>own Internet feed. At this point we
raise the need then to be in the<BR>Library because we are then simply taking up
their limited space. So if<BR>this was to happen then SCN would have to
cover the phone lines, the<BR>Internet feed and possible the cost of a new
location. We do not have the<BR>budget for this and we would be out of
funds within months or weeks.<BR><BR>2) If we were to offer such a service with
a fee, as indicated that<BR>Victoria in Canada does, then we open another can of
worms. First lets<BR>point out we are not in Canada and therefore have a
whole different set of<BR>rules to abide by. One of these is the
IRS. They are already looking at<BR>FreeNets because our "charitable"
status is based on the educational value<BR>of the service. As soon as we
set up a competing service with a<BR>commercial service such as MSN or AOL - fee
for service - in an area which<BR>is not directly education then we fall outside
the charitable status.<BR>Thus we lose the 501(c)3 status. This is what
happened or is happening to<BR>Eugene FreeNet. They had to setup a
commercial company to sell their fee<BR>for service IP connections and break
away from the educational section.<BR>Again something that would put us at odds
with the Library and its<BR>donation to us.<BR><BR>The IRS are still sniping and
they have not yet gotten to SCN, but we are<BR>in their sights. We have to
be careful and stay legal.<BR><BR>Until we can figure out the IRS's view of
this, understand the Library's<BR>view, have the funds and staff to support this
and the software to ensure<BR>that we can guard against misuse - I do not see
SCN being able to commit<BR>to supplying free full internet access for our
users.<BR><BR>Plus - this was not what SCN was designed to offer. It is
initialy an<BR>email and maillist site which grew into a major web resource for
Seattle.<BR>We were never in the free ISP business.<BR><BR>I hope this response
is clear. I am not trying to say we cannot discuss<BR>these points, but we
need to ensure that we can support our current<BR>services before we branch into
others.<BR><BR>Steve<BR>
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=<BR>Steve
Guest
steveg@scn.org
steve@groupworks.org<BR>VP of Board and ED of Seattle Community Network<BR>(425)
653
7353
<A href="http://www.scn.org/">http://www.scn.org/</A><BR><BR>On Thu, 20 Dec
2001, patrick wrote:<BR><BR>> I wish SCN had low-cost, regular dial-up
service. Victoria freenet<BR>> has regular dial-up service for $104 a year,
which is a great deal.<BR>><BR>> Few people use Lynx and after they have
used Hotmail or some other<BR>> web-based service to check their mail, after
they have surfed the net<BR>> to check on items on eBay, etc., one would find
it hard to go to a<BR>> clunky Lynx browswer to surf the web.<BR>><BR>>
Patrick<BR>><BR>> --- Doug Schuler <douglas@scn.org> wrote:<BR>>
><BR>> > A good article entitled "Freenets Getting a New Lease on Life"
is<BR>> > in today's Los Angeles Times.<BR>> ><BR>> ><BR>>
<A
href="http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000100643dec20.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dtechnology">http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000100643dec20.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dtechnology</A><BR>>
><BR>> > -- Doug<BR>> ><BR>> > * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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