UNT Computing Dial-up Services

At its May 21, 1996 meeting, UNT's Information Resources Council voted to reduce the number of free dial-up lines into UNT's central computers from 104 lines to 64 lines and to retain the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) service on the free lines. This article gives the history of UNT's efforts to provide dial-up access to its computers and a rationale for the current levels of services that remain after the reduction of free lines.

As recently as 1994, UNT's Computing Center provided 48 local and 16 metro dial-up lines to UNT computer users at no direct cost to its users. These lines were used primarily by programming students and statistical researchers who logged into the mainframe or the VAX computers. Users rarely had difficulty in getting a connection through these free lines except perhaps at the end of a semester.

Increased Internet Usage Creates Demands

As more people began using UNT's central computers for things such as E-mail and for accessing the Internet for Gopher and text-based World Wide Web browsing, the existing lines became congested, making it very difficult to make connections to UNT's computers from off campus. While it was becoming increasingly clear that more lines were needed to accommodate the demand, the expense of providing the additional lines prevented a quick solution since the costs were large and there was no source of funds to cover them. A few figures highlight the problem: at the time, a local phone line for the dial-up modems cost about $18/month, a metro phone line from Dallas or Fort Worth cost a little over $100/month, and there were significant equipment costs for modems, etc.. The annual telephone line charges alone for the 64 dial-ups lines were just under $29,000.

The Information Resources Council realized that the University could never afford to provide enough dial-up lines to meet burgeoning demand. Because of the urgency of the problem, the Computing Center increased the number of free lines as a temporary measure in November, 1994, explaining as it did so that some method of permanent funding of the dial-up service would have to be found.

Premium Remote Access Subscriptions and PPP

In March, 1995, the IRC decided to offer the Premium Remote Access Subscription (fee-based) service to students and faculty as a means by which to expand the University's dial-up capability as well as to fund that expansion. The fee for the Premium Access service was calculated to only recover the operating cost of the service: $190,000 worth of equipment was purchased with state funds to get the service started.

At the same time, however, the IRC voted to provide PPP services on UNT's free dial-up lines. PPP services were a major enhancement to the free lines, enabling users to run graphical World Wide Web browsers and other graphical Internet applications from their home machines. The results of that decision were threefold:

1. demand for access to the free lines continued to skyrocket,
2. the roll-out of PPP doubled or tripled the demand for user support in the Computing Center's Support Services area (the "help desk") and in the Data Communications area, and
3. subscriptions to the Premium Access service fell well below projections and thus haven't recovered the costs of the service.

The Information Resources Council wrestled with this problem at its May, 1996 meeting, and voted on three motions:

1. to drop the free dial-up service completely and use the cost savings to subsidize the Premium Service and thus reduce the Service's cost,
2. to drop PPP support from the free service and reduce the number of lines to the historic level of 48 local and 16 Metro lines, and
3. to retain the PPP service on the free lines but reduce the number of lines to 48 local and 16 Metro connections.

The third motion was approved with the proviso that the effect of that change be monitored during the Summer to determine its impact on users. Cost savings from reducing the number of lines were to go toward covering the increased personnel costs associated with the dial-up lines in general.

UNT Compared to Other Universities

As a result, the number of free dial-up lines was reduced in August 1996. Currently, therefore, UNT has 48 free lines with PPP access in the Denton area, 16 free PPP lines in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metro area, 96 Premium Access Denton lines, and 48 Premium Access lines in each of Dallas and Ft. Worth, for a total of 256 lines. This compares favorably with Texas Tech University's 126 lines and the University of Houston's 240 lines. Texas Tech charges $45 per semester for a dial-up account (they have no free service) while Houston has no charge for dial-up service. U of H, though, does have a computer use fee of $50 for everyone taking nine hours or more. The University of Texas at Dallas charges a $45 per semester computer use fee for everyone wanting access to anything but the campus library system and a $25 per semester automated services fee. UT Austin charges $.12/day for dial-up access regardless of whether or not you use it, plus $.02/day for each megabyte of disk storage for E-mail, etc. UT Austin also charges for computer usage on many of their computer systems.

UNT's Premium Access service currently costs $10/month for Denton-area lines and $15/month for Dallas and Ft. Worth lines. The service guarantees that the user-to-line ratio will not exceed seven users to a line. Most Dallas area Internet Service Providers, in contrast, charge $15 to $20 per month with no guarantees on service levels.

UNT also has a $4.50 per credit hour Computer Usage fee whose primary purpose is the support of UNT's General Access Computer Lab system of 14 labs and 500 computers. It also supports credit card registration services, general computing costs for registration processing, the ASSIST phone system, and similar student-oriented computing support. It should be stressed that the Computer Usage fee does not provide any direct support for UNT's dial-up services, either the free or Premium ones.

The provision of dial-up computer access is a problem for universities throughout the United States because of the cost of the service in terms of telephone lines, equipment, and help desk support. Many universities have opted to rely on commercial Internet service providers to provide such access and many haven't advanced yet to providing PPP access to their campus computers at all. UNT has a long history of serving its students' needs for off-campus computing access to its services, and will continue to strive to meet the demands for state-of-the-art connectivity to the Internet for its students. The expenses of such access, however, will have to be borne at least in part by the users of those services so that UNT can bring the full benefits of academic computing to all students of the University.

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