November '98 Meeting Notes

Business Meeting:

HRiA's Board has been developing the new HRiA's By-Laws. 

Cliff McWaters gave the treasurer's report. 

Individuals interested in serving on HRiA's Board should contact Mel Miller via e-mail and addition information can be obtained from any HRiA Board Member.  The nominating committee will complied the list and present it to the members at the March 1999 General Meeting.

General Meeting:

Internet Connectivity in the home, business and schools

Disclaimer:
This page contains hyperlinks to World Wide Web sites that are created and maintained by other organizations. I have included these links because I believe that visitors to the HRIA site may find them of interest. Keep in mind neither the author nor the Hampton Roads Internet Association necessarily endorse the views expressed on these Web sites. Also, I do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information presented on these sites.

Zachary E. Lowe sales and marketing with Pinnacle Online

Pinnacle Online is located in Norfolk, VA right off VA Beach, Blvd and has been providing Internet access to the Hampton Roads area since 1993. Our reach expands throughout all of Hampton Roads, into Gloucester and Williamsburg and in Elizabeth City and the Outer Banks of NC.

In addition to home dial up access, we offer dedicated connectivity in the form of ISDN, Frame Relay and T1. Also, we offer fully equipped web hosting and domains complete email routing and registration if required.

To the home customer, we offer the latest technology at the best prices in the area. We've always been able to offer this for our customers and it is something of which we are very proud. Our speeds are digital 56k; our modem ratio is very solid, meaning that busy signals are almost a non-occurrence.

We take great pride in our customer service and technical support. We understand the importance of treating people with respect and being happy to work with them. Our technicians are schooled and tested in all the latest technologies and are available 7 days a week.

Also in our web page, which I'll show in a minute, we include a comprehensive support page as well as link page for customers to have easy access to the often-confusing Internet.

Now, I would like go ahead and walk you though our web site which is the first thing that most people come across when they log on through us. As you can tell, the site has most everything, including our prices, which many ISP web sites do not offer.

Tour of site www.pinn.net

Member page

Support page

Client list

As you can tell, our home page offers many things for our customers to offer them a navigation point from which to begin.

You've seen who we are, heard a little bit about what we've done, now the question lingers as to where we're going. In our business, development and change is an everyday occurrence. Or to quote a well-worn line, "You run with big dogs or you stay on the porch."

One way in which our field is developing, is the migration away from traditional dial up. By that I mean the modem connection. There are several new methods that are offering both home, business and school users much faster speed than phone lines have the ability to transmit. We've all heard of cable modems, which I'll touch upon momentarily. That is definitely one direction the industry is heading, Also ASDL is another which I wont go into this evening, but is definitely coming. The ability to connect and not have to tie up a phone line is appealing in almost all arenas.

A third and final directions is "smart building" There are some of these in Hampton Roads already under development and it is certainly something that we'll be looking into as well. For those who aren't familiar with the lingo, a "smart building" refers to an office or even a residential building that is wired to maximize high speed Internet connections. One way of course is to run a dedicated line like a T1 into the building and split it among the tenants, thereby dividing the potentially high monthly costs among a group.

First we'll begin with a topic we all have the most familiarity with and that’s Internet connectivity in the home. The first aspect is of course the dial up dimension. Dial up connections first came into play earlier in the decade with larger services such as Prodigy and CompuServe coming into prominence. An early drawback was that although they were national, there were many areas especially rural locales, that were not close to a POP (which stands for Point of Presence) and long distance charges applied. Also, and which still is the case, customer were not able to get the personalized attention that was often required. My experience working with a local provider has shown that to be a definite advantage.

As personal computers have developed, so have modem speeds. A modem of course, is hardware that connects to the phone line and connects to the Internet. Early connections were with 9600-baud modems. This was before the web was largely graphical as it is today. I remember good old chat irc and pine very well.

Since, the standard has evolved into 14.4, then 28.8, up to 33.6 which is still widely in use and 56k which is the accepted speed to date. As always is the case, 56k modem prices are decreasing until the next big connection comes about, and as I mentioned before, it probably wont be a modem.

Diamond Multimedias Shotgun

What is available now beyond a 56k modem? One thing that we offer is dual modem MPP dial up. This involves using something like Diamond Multimedias Shotgun technology with two phone line to get this speed. Simply put, you have the power of two high-speed modems working together. We are currently among the local ISP's that support this technology. To get a better picture, lets take a look at the web page

Tour of page http://www.diamondmm.com/shotgun/

Main page

What makes Shotgun Unique?

Common Q&A

As you can tell, the site features a great Q n A section for those questions that are bound to arise.

Another available but not quite practical option is to run an ISDN at home for dial up access. Soon, I'll go in to more detail about that. The upside to this is guaranteed 64k or 128k speeds. The downside is the cost. The user has to pay setup plus cost associated by usage. A 64k ISDN has 1 b channel making it 2 cents per minute. 128 with 2b channels is 4 cents and on and on. I actually have a friend who ran a line to his home and ended up canceling after his first bill came in. So it's available, but not quite practical.

This leads us to technology that I'm sure is on everyone's mind, cable modems. A cable modem allows high-speed data access via cable TV lines. How fast? Let's take a look at cable modems.com

Brief tour of site www.cablemodems.com

Cable Modem

In general, cable modem technology is in the trial stage (over 800 locations worldwide) with service available in only

selected areas. What many people do not realize is that the cable modem works on a shared network. Due to the shared nature of cable modem technology, heavy peak usage and modulation schemes can heavily influence information transfer rates.

As with any shared system, the number of users, and the services required, will vary with time.

Features and Advantages:

Very large potential bandwidth capabilities could result in very high data rates.

All rates are superior to 56K Modems, ISDN and the Television-based option.

Reasonably priced services: US$15-100 for residential and business (where available).

Disadvantages:

One criticism of cable networks is that as peak load increases the efficiency, from the consumer's viewpoint, will decrease.

Immature technology without widespread availability.

Cable modems operate over a shared media and are subject to peak loads and increased noise.

Also, on that same note, since they are shared, it's possible for your neighbors to view the contents of your hard drive.

New cabling is predominantly planned for residential areas leaving less populated and rural areas once again behind the times.

Now, we can move to the business portion. I've spent the most time focusing on the net at home because that’s an asset we can all relate to. I'm learning a great deal myself about the Internet at work.

Since I've taken the majority of time to talk about the net at home, I'll be much briefer concerning business communication.

We are all aware of the value of having the Internet as a business application. The nature of my current position dictates that I deal with mostly businesses. So, this evening I'll discuss two of current business solutions that we offer ISDN, and Frame Relay.

Go to http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/isdn/isdn_ai.html

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) over 10 years old. It is an often-requested solution due to its low cost.

At its most basic level, ISDN provides a standard "pipe" called the Basic Rate Interface. BRI is transmitted over the Normal 2-wire copper cable facilities which are familiar to telephone transmission all over the world. But unlike Ordinary analog transmission where you're restricted to one conversation at a time, BRI combines, or multiplexes, three communications channels into one pipe - all of which can be used simultaneously.

Advantages and Applications

For one, digital lines provide a far cleaner, error-free connection that can ensure reliable transmission worldwide.

Secondly, digital lines allow equipment that processes data digitally, such as computers or networking routers, to be directly connected, and without the 4 Kilohertz bandwidth limitations imposed by POTS (voice) telephone lines. An ISDN line can carry data at nearly five times the fastest rate achievable using analog modems over POTS lines.   Further, while a POTS line can carry only limited signaling information between the network and the end device (telephone or modem, for example), ISDN lines can carry detailed messages back and forth. This information can be used to define multiple incoming callers, to specify the type of incoming data, or to convey useful diagnostic information.

Frame Relay

Frame Relay offers a higher speed Switched Digital connection than ISDN service and adds bandwidth on demand capabilities.

Frame Relay service is ordered with a committed information rate (CIR). The CIR of the connection is the minimum amount of bandwidth a customer will have available at any given time. For example, we offer a 512k Frame with a 256k CIR. Although the user can reach or "burst" to 512 speeds, he or she is always guaranteed 256k.

Applications of Frame Relay

LAN connections are a perfect match for Frame Relay Service. The Committed Information Rate (CIR and Burst capabilities of a Frame Relay connection keep pace with the bursty nature of LAN communications. Frame Relay service is affordable because you are effectively sharing bandwidth with other Frame Relay customers on the network when you do not use all of your CIR.

Frame Relay Service is also ideal for linking home offices to corporate offices for employees that work from home and need more bandwidth than ISDN can provide.

Frame Advantages

The ability of a Frame Relay connection to burst transfers at a higher speed makes this type of connection ideally suited for LAN to WAN connections.

Frame Relay is expandable to create a network with all your sites, customers, suppliers, or anyone you need to share data with.

Frame Relay offers a less expensive solution than Dedicated Digital Leased Line Service in many applications.

The main drawback is high installation costs but it is not mileage sensitive like ISDN or T1.

Internet in the Schools

By this time, I'm sure everyone is getting a little tired so I'll be somewhat brief. Not that Internet in the school is lacking importance. As a matter of fact, it's very important. From a technical standpoint, all the technology discussed to this point is used to wire Internet applications into the classroom.

So what use does the net have in school? First, the Internet is essential in preparing the student for the real world. Internet application is many places in the workforce and it's important for students to learn at an early age.

Just recently, I was asked to attend a curricula review in Chesapeake. I actually saw intent based textbook that’s being used. Its very heartening to see the web used in school.

Also, the web is a wonderful educational resource. Facts and related contact info on just about any subject can easily be found. There are databases and ftp sites set aside just for teachers as well as student-centered databases and a plethora of educational products.

Tour of sites……

http://www.enc.org

about enc

http://sunsite.unc.edu/cisco/edu-arch.html

school house networking

In closing, I would like to note that I basically just scraped the surface of the resources the net has to offer. Whether it be high-speed information transfer or just a source of information. Everything can be found at your fingertips. I'll take some time to answer any questions and I've also brought some cards and brochures to give you more information about Pinnacle Online!

Contents of this page were the basis of a presentation to the HRIA by Zachary E. Lowe

This page last updated on December 17, 1998