A board's regular users will be confined to the local telephone district owing to the high cost of STD calls. Against these limitations, there are important advantages derived from the hobbyist origins. Bulletin boards offer very lost cost access, simple and user friendly operation, openness to all callers, and communication to a common interest group. Users of a BBS will require their own microcomputer installation with a simple modem and communications software. Each call to a BBS, if in the same telephone district, will cost only one local call fee.
Registered users have access to all services and their own passwords.
The openness and common interest features of bulletin boards are important advantages. You can expect to find a common interest group, though of course the overwhelming interest will be microcomputers. However, there are many significant possibilities for common interest, including a group of students who are studying the same or similar courses at an educational institution. Full time students on the campus have ready access to these channels of communication, but for part time and external students communications with other students are an unmet need. There would be universal agreement that students benefit from communications with one another.