Web Crawl

Your review of World Wide Web/Internet access from the Big Three on-line service providers ("Gateways to the Internet," September) had one blind spot: a "reference" direct Internet service provider. You would have found that such direct service is much faster than the fastest of the Big Three. I have accounts with a local Internet service provider and with America Online. I find the latter unworkably slow when poking around on the Net. Thanks otherwise for your high standard of technical journalism.

Tony Hurson
tony@oldnick.ross.com

A reference Internet service provider to compare with the Big Three information services would be great, but it's a little more complicated than just looking at speed. I can connect to America Online via a T-1 link and it zips along as fast as any ISP I've used. CompuServe and Prodigy probably would be screamers over T-1, too. On the other hand, an ISP with too few modems or too small a connection to the Internet could provide users with problems simply connecting (as do the Big Three at some hours in some locations) or with slowness born of bandwidth congestion. Perhaps instead of a reference ISP we need a true benchmark for evaluating real-world bit-transfer rates, something that would take into account local conditions as well as general Internet conditions. -- George Bond