Group Giving Away Access to the Internet by Annie Lindstrom

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

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Communications Week 15 November 1993 at page 41


Group Giving Away Access to the Internet
by Annie Lindstrom




Washington.  The 6-month-old International
Internet Association has begun a program aimed
at providing free access to the nationwide
computer network.


Since the program began Nov. 1, the privately
funded, non-profit group has assigned account
numbers to nearly 6,000 users, according to
Maximillian Robbins, executive director of the
IIA, based here.


Users with account numbers will be able to dial
into the IIA's master node, located here.  A
long distance carrier provides a toll-free 14.4
kilobit per second link from the IIA node to the
Internet, Robbins said.


[ed.- now that's what you call high bandwidth for
6000 users!]


The node, which will be activated by Dec. 1, initially
will accommodate several hundred inbound lines.  The
IIA ultimately would like to be able to keep 1000 users
simultaneously connected to the Internet, Robbins said.


The IIA, which receives funding from several concerns,
wants to keep the Internet from being overrun by casual
users and commercial service providers, Robbins said.


According to Robbins, nearly 1 million users join the
Internet every month, and more and more of these users
are accessing the network via various natinal on-line
services.  These services have done little to provide
increased bandwidth for their growing Internet connections
or to educate their users about the true costs of using
the network, he said.


Unlike the on-line services, IIA intends to acquire and
provide adequate access to the Internet and to educate
it's users, Robbins said.


"The Internet should be cheap and easy to use and the
people who access it should be aware that their use of
it has an ultimate cost," Robbins said.  "We want to
make sure that people can move around and use it as a
tool, instead of a shopping mall."


The IIA can be reached at 202-387-5445.