Theresa covered a lot of this in her post, and in better detail. My experience with ATT is that if the connection has setup problems, you jump through hoops with them to get it to work. A lot of our clients have older wiring.
If we go with someone like Charter they may want income verification to assure that the client actually cannot afford Internet service. However, we could see what they actually say. My friend who owns an ISP said that they key to lower subscription costs is over subscription so that the fixed costs are shared among customers who do not use the service all of the time or at full bandwidth. He uses static IPs, so he cannot oversubscribe. I will meet with a Socket rep next week. They have a small footprint in St. Louis and use ATT for last mile. Maybe he can offer a solution. John House wrote: > > I spoke to a friend who owns an ISP in St. Charles County. He said that > dial up is not a profit center, ie it is expensive to offer, and the > market cannot support the prices someone needs to maintain it. > > He mentioned two possibilities: I local provider, like a university or > library system that has excess capacity and would support it in exchange > for supporting some of the line costs, > > or > > a larger carrier like juno (if they are still around) or aol who would > support it in exchange for publicity. > > To that end, I would recommend that we approach the Saint Louis UNIX > Users Group. I have no contacts there as I became inactive some four > years ago. However, several of our volunteers are members, I believe. > They used to offer the service and may still have it. One warning, I > believe they have 14K connections. > > Long term, we need to check out transitioning to DSL. ATT offers a low > end service for about $10 a month. Others may be willing to match the > ATT concept. Perhaps we can approach donors to underwrite the costs of > subsidizing for one year. > > Susan Turk wrote: > > Perhaps the doctor from Cardinal Glennon who gave us the grant could > > help look into whether SLU would help provide free internet to our > grads. > > > > susan > > > > */Kenneth E Walter <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:kewalter%40swbell.net>>/* wrote: > > > > I don't know. > > > > */Susan Turk <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:susangturk%40yahoo.com>>/* wrote: > > > > Would it b possible to find an alternate free internet service > > provider such as a university? > > > > */"Kenneth E. Walter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:kewalter%40swbell.net>>/* wrote: > > > > I was having trouble with the Internet Service and called > > them on the > > phone. I was informed that the service was discontinued on > > July 1 due > > to budgetary restrictions. > > > > I've had calls from adults about no connection. One > > computer is in the > > shop for repairs. I changed the OS from 2000 to Win XP and > > changed > > modems and this prompted the call. > > > > They said they sent me an e-mail two months ago. I never > > read their > > e=mail and only use it for testing. > > > > I'll recruit a kids class for July 14 and make no promises > > about the > > Internet. We will tell the adult class about this and > > offer them their > > money back and cancel their course. I presume most of them > > will > > continue without the Internet. > > > > There are probably about 100 people with less than 1 year > > of service. > > > > > > > > > > > >
