response 1 of 55:

Dec 11 18:49 UTC 1994

   I sent off mail to Jeff Ogden too, hoping that I can get some
technical details.
   In theory, it would be *wonderful* to get such access.  Wether
we can afford it in terms of the hardware needed to connect is an
open question now.
   Remember however, that net access is soon going to be different
than dialin access.  Merit will be charging for dialins soon, and
however or whenever that happens, the free ride of Merit dialins
will be gone.
   That doesn't mean that we shouldn't think about this, just that
what we can get for $1000/yr now, is different from what we'l gett
at some point in the future.

response 3 of 55:

Dec 11 22:59 UTC 1994

I am confused as to what the $1000 buys us. My first guess is
(1) You would be able to type Grex at a which host prompt and get us.
(2) We get a 56k internet connection that people could telnet to
directly without going through Hermes's prompt. This would replace
or augment the ICnet connection.

I also didn't understand the part about the friendly group that already
has a merit connection. Would they have to share their 56k with us?
Why would they want to do that? Where does the connection terminate?
Are there phone line charges in addition, or are they included?

If we get (1) and (2) and we get all 56k, and there are no other charges,
the $1000 sounds like an interesting proposition for us.
I am quite interested in this, but I feel there must be a "catch" somewhere.

response 5 of 55:

Dec 12 00:55 UTC 1994

The "Which host" prompt will be going away sometime in 1995, as I
understand it, to be replaced with nas servers that require an id and
password.  People affiliated with Merit-member institutions -- such as
faculty and students at the Michigan public universities -- will be
able to give their usual system login and password as authentication,
but the free anonymous access currently available to the general public
is supposed to disappear.

This does not mean that free public access to the internet is going to
go away, necessarily.  Perhaps the nas servers will provide an
"anonymous" login with a well-known password, providing access to at
least some services.  A Merit affiliate such as a univeristy *could*
provide an anonymous login to access other services.  I don't know how
much detail has been decided.  But my impression is that Merit and the
universities don't want to pick up the tab for public access to
anything like the extent they've been doing.  I'll speculate that
filling the void by providing public access could become a role of
community networks such as the HVCN.

Jeff Ogden discusses Merit's planned changes in a recent usenet
posting.  I've put a copy in my home directory as a public service.  :)
Type "!more /home/remmers/ogden" to view it.

response 7 of 55:

Dec 12 06:01 UTC 1994

I believe I posted this information about 2yrs ago, saying the Merit folks
said if we could hook up with EMU (through Remmers), the fees wouldn't be
very expensive, but it was too expensive at the time. Nothing seems to have
changed, except Grex has more money now.

        Pattie

response 9 of 55:

Dec 12 18:06 UTC 1994

   If we can find someone to hook up to, then we can have a 56Kb line
into Merit for about $83.33 a month.  Getting the connection is the
interesting part.

response 11 of 55:

Dec 12 21:35 UTC 1994

   ...If the politicial problems are surmountable.  And it isn't that
the people there wouldn't be opposed to it, but little things like who
has to keep it running, etc.  If we did this then we would have another
case of non-access to the hardware.

response 13 of 55:

Dec 14 02:03 UTC 1994

        I don't have my notes handy, but what M-Net found out is that a 28K
Merit connection would cost us $1000 to be a Merit affiliate, plus two 28K
modems at $700 each, plus phone lines for both sides, plus a connect fee,
plus a fee per average peak user (figured per day as I understood it --
that is, for the max users we usually have on M-Net from a Which Host?
prompt) of $250 per year.  It came out to about $4200 for the first year,
$2500 or so for each additional year for a 6 user connection.  We'd buy
the modem for their end, and pay $100 in startup costs, and pay some
additional money for other start-up costs.
        Additionally, Merit told me in a conference call about their plans to
restrict dial-in access to the Which Host? prompt to authorized users.
        It looked like a terrible deal for M-Net.  Grex would be better off
getting an ISDN connection from ICNET or MSEN, which would cost $1500 for 
an ISDN router, $250/month for connect charges, and $35/month for an ISDN
line, plus $150 to install the ISDN line, from ICNET.  M-Net negotiated a
better deal from MSEN, but we decided we cannot afford it at present;
details are available in the policy conference on M-Net.  Perhaps they'd
offer the deal to Grex as well.  It amounted to $2800 for two ISDN
routers, $300 for two ISDN lines, and monthly charges for the two ISDN
lines at about $70/month, with no charges for packets -- an at-cost
connection, essentially.

response 15 of 55:

Dec 15 01:41 UTC 1994

This is all interesting.  Whatever the details, this is something that
someone here should be looking at seriously.

response 17 of 55:

Dec 17 17:20 UTC 1994

This is also what I suspected at first. I am tending to believe it after
what jep said. I'd like to know I have the real poop and the real numbers
before deciding if a deal is a good one. At the moment I do not trust
this one too much. Does anyone want to get with Jeff Ogden and clarify any 
of these points?

response 19 of 55:

Dec 18 02:23 UTC 1994

Ja, I talked to Merit a few years ago.  It's definitely time to talk to
them again.  Prices on Merit connections seem to change frequently.

STeve sent mail to Jeff Ogden.  I'll be interested to hear if he got
a response.

response 21 of 55:

Dec 18 10:35 UTC 1994

What are we paying now?

response 23 of 55:

Dec 18 18:29 UTC 1994

But we are paying for the phone costs out of our own pocket now.