Using the Big Three commercial information providers
can be expensive
. Here's what it would cost to surf the Internet for 30 hours per month with each of them.
AOL (America Online).
The first 5 hours are included in the $9.95 monthly fee. You're then charged $2.95 for each of the remaining 25 hours. Total: $83.70.
CompuServe.
An initial charge of $9.95 includes unlimited use of basic services and 3 hours of Internet services (i.e., World Wide Web, FTP, telnet, and the Usenet news reader). An additional charge of $15 gets you an Internet Club membership with 17 more hours of connect time; each of the remaining 10 hours costs $1.95. Total:
$44.90.
Prodigy.
You get 30 hours of connect time under the 30/30 Plan. Total: $29.95.
To be fair, these comparisons aren't strictly parallel; CompuServe also has a mail surcharge (10 cents for the first 7500 words and 2 cents for each additional 7500 words per message) if you exceed approximately 90 three-page, full-text messages a month. But time spent in mail is not counted toward connect charges. The other services don't have a mail surcharge; they account for mail in their regular connect-time charges.
By comparison, ISPs (Internet service providers), companies that offer gateways to the Internet but rarely any local databases, have charges ranging from about $20 to $30 for 20 to 40 hours of access via 28.8-Kbps or slower modems, plus a dollar or two per hour for additional time.
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Using the Big Three commercial information providers can be expensive. Here's what it would cost to surf the Internet for 30 hours per month with each of them.
Convenience, but at What Price?
