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Computing Center to Discontinue Dialup Network Services
The Computing
Center's Premium Remote Access Service has been losing subscribers
and, unfortunately, money, for the past year. As users have shifted to
direct Ethernet connections in the dorms or have chosen to get
broadband access from either the phone company (DSL) or the cable
company (cable modems,) the income from PRAS has dropped to the point
that it won't even pay for the phone lines that users dial into. Faced
with that continuing loss in revenue as well as a probable budget cut
next fiscal year, UNT’s Computing Center will cease providing both
paid (PRAS) and free dialup network service to the University’s
users effective August 31, 2003. Both the Information Resource Council
and the Council of Deans have discussed the question of dropping
dialup service and have approved the change. Existing users of the
premium service will continue to receive service through the length of
their existing contracts.
A number of factors weighed in the decision to drop dialup line
support:
- At the current subscription numbers, UNT would lose
over $7,000 per year on the paid and free lines just on the cost of
the phone lines. Other expenses of supporting dialup services
include the cost of a technician to support the equipment into which
users dial, the cost of help desk wages, and the replacement costs
of the dialup equipment. The State’s budget problems will probably
result in a reduction in the Computing Center’s budget next fiscal
year, and it was not considered cost-effective to continue
supporting a money-losing service.
- UNT’s dialup service was initiated about seven years
ago when no cost-effective alternative Internet Service Provider
operated in the Denton area. But with the growing popularity of the
Internet, there are now close to three hundred ISPs that provide
Internet service to the Denton area. UNT’s paid and free dialup
services simply don’t compare well with commercial services:
- The free remote access service connects at a maximum
33.6kbps, while most ISPs connect at 56kbps.
- We don’t have a 24 X 7 help desk.
-
We don’t provide a nationwide "roaming"
service that allows connection to our network through a local
phone call when traveling outside of the local area, instead of
dialing long distance into UNT’s dialup lines.
- We only provide a single e-mail address to subscribers
instead of two to dozens of e-mail addresses for subscriber’s
family members as do commercial ISP’s.
- We don’t provide nearly as many newsgroups as most
commercial ISP’s and in fact are investigating whether we will
continue to support newsgroups at all.
- The personal Web site service we provide is subject to
State regulations about commercial use of state property so users
can’t advertise goods or services as they could on commercial
ISP’s sites.
- More than half of the workload at UNT’s central
computing help desk is related to dialup problems. With the
Enterprise Information System starting to come on line this Fall,
the help desk will be supporting that new system’s end users. We'd
have to either increase the number of help desk workers or reduce
support for some other service, such as WebCT, if we added the EIS
support without reducing dialup support. Budget constraints prevent
us from hiring additional staff, and the other services that the
help desk supports are considered more mission-critical than dialup
support.
- The remote access equipment has reached the end of its
useful life and we are faced with a significant expense to upgrade
the equipment to keep it operating satisfactorily.
- ISPs can offer a wide range of products including
broadband and DSL Internet access (high-speed access generally
provided by the local phone company as DSL or by the cable company
as cable modem service). It is technically impossible for UNT to
provide similar services, so potential subscribers to PRAS that
obtain high speed services from an ISP further decrease the number
of paid subscribers to our remote access service, with an
accompanying decrease in revenue for an already money-losing service
Alternatives for Dialup Users
With nearly 300 ISPs serving the Denton area, students, faculty and
staff, have many options from which to choose. Many of the ISPs offer
Internet service for $10.00 per month, and many also offer higher
speed broadband services at additional charges. ISP locating services
are available on the web from www.isp.com
or www.ispfinder.com, or by
using one of the many search services like Yahoo,
Google or MetaCrawler.
To find an ISP on a search service, simply enter "ISP Denton
Texas," "ISP locator" or "$10 ISP Denton
Texas."
Those who can afford broadband service (around $40 to $50/mo.) can
ask their local phone or cable provider about service to their homes.
Although DSL or cable service isn’t available in many locations,
those who have subscribed to those types of service have been
relatively pleased with their speed and reliability.
As an alternative to paying for Internet access, there are a number
of ISPs that offer free dialup services. Although these services are
free, you may have to pay the "price" of having to see
advertisements on everything you view on the Web with those services.
Again, one of the ISP finders can help you find those free services.
The Computing Center is working with Purchasing and Payment
Services to see if the University can negotiate with one or more ISP’s
to offer former users of UNT’s remote access services a special deal
for using their service. We expect to know the outcome of that effort
by mid-June 2003.
Additional information
The Helpdesk has started a Frequently
Asked Questions page to which you can refer for additional
information about the discontinuance of the dialup lines. You can also
E-mail Maurice Leatherbury at leatherb@unt.edu
if you don't find the information you're looking for there.
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