There may also be surcharges associated with sending or receiving Internet mail. This is an account on another computer that is directly connected to the Internet. To reach the account, the user can either dial-in by modem or go through a local area network. The Internet access provider maintains the Internet tools, but there is no direct multimedia capability and double transfers may be necessary to retrieve images or software. The Internet software tools are located on the user's machine, and are usually not maintained and updated by the Internet access provider.
Recent developments can give a terminal account some direct connection capabilities.
Pipeline is an Internet access provider that has a graphical front end to a terminal account. Ask about customer and technical support. For a regular terminal account, it should at least include Pine, trn, telnet and tn3270, gopher, Lynx, and swais. A full service direct connection may offer a set of prepacked tools. Comparing Costs Use the following chart to compare the cost for different plans or access providers.