From: FZC@CU.NIH.GOV
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: E-Mail For Michigan Residents
Date: 15 Oct 92 20:58:01 GMT
Reply-To: TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 785, Message 3 of 9

On Sun 11 Oct 1992 02:07:11 GMT, Damon A. Koronakos (Damon@sunburn.
stanford.edu) writes:

> A friend of mine in Kalamzoo [Michigan] recently got an
> IBM-compatible machine.  I would like to be able to exchange
> electronic mail with him ...

See if he can find a local BBS in the area on Fidonet, which has a
matrix area.  If it does, he can use the matrix area to send a message
to the local server which provides internet access for that fidonet
region.

If you are not sure, send a message to me on Fidonet and I'll find out
who is in your area. 

My address is:
Paul.Robinson@f417.n109.z1.fidonet.org

Fidonet addresses are in the form z:f/n, for example, the BBS I use is
1:109/417 in the Washington DC area.  (You can see how it matches up.)
Zone 1 is North America.  Other zones are for other parts of the world
or for non-Fido networks.  Fidonet is claimed as "fully integrated"
which means anyone on Fido has an internet address.  Whether the local
sysop allows internet mail to reach them is another matter.  Whether
that sysop allows them to send internet mail is yet another.  I've
used all three types of Fidonet systems: no internet mail, incoming
only and full e-mail.

The other possibility are the pay networks.  AT&T Mail has a lousy
interface, a poor method of transferring messages, doesn't support
Kermit or Zmodem, but only charges $3 a month for a mailbox.

MCI Mail is probably the "premier" E-Mail service, and it has several
options: Pay $36 a year and get an E-mail and telex address with no
message unit charge, pay $10 a month and get the first 40 message
units, or pay $25 a month and get the first 250 message units, plus
you can add up to five additional mailboxes for $5 a month each to
this account.  I have studied my account on MCI often enough that I
decided to change to the $10 a month plan since I'm not sending that
many units, but I'm paying more than $10 a month in usage because of
the number of messages I do send.  MCI Mail includes telex send AND
RECEIVE (which AT&T charges $25 a month to obtain) otherwise both are
about the same pricing structure.

Mr. Koronakos also says:

> I don't know if Prodigy/Compuserve-type service provide email access
> to the net, how much extra (if any) this costs, etc.

Compu$erve does provide internet access but their rates are at least
$12.50 an hour to send or receive messages, and I believe they also
charge for messages sent.  On the other hand Compuserve is offering a
$7.50 a month special access plan which allows a certain number of
messages sent per month.

It was announced in this month's {Computer Shopper} that Prodigy is
bowing to repeated demands of its customers that it will offer a
gateway to Internet, first for customers using IBM computers, and next
for Macintosh users.

But a gateway cuts both ways.  I wonder what happens when someone
figures out how to have the ALT.SEX newsgroup sent to them as mail.
(At this time, you can't, to the relief of a lot of people.  :) )


Paul Robinson -- TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM
These (uninformed) opinions are mine alone, nobody else is
(stupid enough to be) responsible for them.