All others are limited to read access only, or manipulation of copies. Metadata will be sent to the Regional GIS Coordinator for posting on the Regional or National GIS home page. This metadata will serve as the clearing house for all data in the Region. A distributed system requires that all host office have the necessary disk space and communication lines to be an effective distribution point for GIS data. At this point in time, that may be a problem for some offices.
Alternatives are available.
Metadata and base data sets could be made available from the national FWS GIS homepage. Regardless of who you are and where you are in the Region, you will be able to obtain metadata from one point. Metadata will direct you to the ecoregion office which hosts the data. Data transfer rates are higher. Otherwise, the IDE will be fine, and cost much less.