The Online World resources handbook
The Online World resources handbook
The Online World resources handbook
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You pay little for a lot! http://home.eunet.no/~presno/bok/15.html<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Online</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>resources</strong> <strong>handbook</strong><br />
Chapter 15:<br />
You pay little for a lot!<br />
[INDEX] [Expanded Index] [Search] [NEXT] [BACK]<br />
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When you pay by the minute<br />
Example: <strong>World</strong> Wide Web<br />
Items to consider<br />
Pauses, delays and bottlenecks<br />
Planning and self discipline pays off<br />
Modem speed and cost<br />
More practical hints<br />
Calculating costs<br />
Some years ago, a person living in Norway could read up to twenty six pages of news<br />
from Associated Press (the US) and Financial Times (England) for about US$0.38. At<br />
the time, this was very cheap.<br />
<strong>The</strong> trick was to dial long distance to a 9600 bps node in Sweden when the<br />
telephone company and CompuServe's non prime time rates were in effect. 9600 bps<br />
gave transfers at up to 960 characters of text per second. One page of text (size A4) held<br />
around 2200 characters. A typical news story had one to two pages of text.<br />
Reading exactly the same news through another network or service would cost 300<br />
percent more. Through yet another online service, the cost would double again.<br />
A full issue of the Newsbytes newsletter was at around 150,000 characters, or 68<br />
pages of text. Retrieving it from a local BBS used to cost me around 29 cents. Retrieving<br />
it from CompuServe set me back 500 percent more. On old NewsNet, at 2400 bps<br />
through Datapak, the cost increased by another US$30.00.<br />
<strong>The</strong> time of day was important. Some services had different rates for access during<br />
the day, the evening, and the weekend. Also, it would take much longer when network<br />
traffic was high, resulting in an increased cost per page received.<br />
Today, these costs are indeed much lower for many!<br />
<strong>The</strong> online news scene has changed considerably. Many users can read almost all<br />
the news they want for free via the Internet. <strong>The</strong> retrieval speeds are much higher. <strong>The</strong><br />
number of sources for news is staggering.<br />
However, in some countries, reading news is still expensive. Users pay big money<br />
for accessing the Internet, using the phone for communications, and buying modems.<br />
In many places, getting connected to the Internet at high speed is limited, or<br />
outright impossible. Low capacity links connects the local Internet providers to the<br />
global Internet. <strong>The</strong> result is further decreases in actual news retrieval speeds.<br />
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