Have you called MacTel because you have read about our role as an access to Internet?
Let me tell you more.
Internet is a global network of millions of users in academia, military, government, the professions, and industry, and private individuals. It is estimated that two million new people a month are joining Internet, worldwide.
It actually consists of many smaller interlinked nets that share common protocols for addressing. It started off as a network for the US Military, called Arpanet. Like the GPS (Ground Positioning System) it rapidly grew to take on a major non military role. Many other commercial and academic nets have links into this system, and several different protocols have been established, united by a common system of naming addresses, enabling any user to send mail to any other user, regardless of distance or local domain. The United States Government sees the establishment of fibre optical highways to millions of users as a major infrastructural development that will enable the economy to grow.
With an Internet address, you can reach out to or be reached by millions of destination computers. An EMail landing on an individual's computer has more effect than a letter ior a Fax. The temptation to hit Command-R is so great and so effortless, that within seconds of reading your EMail, its possible that your correspondent is replying to you. Within a few more hours, the reply is on your desktop.
You already have an Internet address. We have just given you one a moment ago.
Simply by logging on to this system, you have created for yourself an address. If you are called John Williams, you can now publish (on your notepaper and visiting cards) your Internet address as john_williams@iconex.mactel.org, or john_williams@metro.mactel.org (depending on which MacTel you are reading this on.
You can now receive EMail from anywhere in the world over the internet.
Unfortunately, you cannot reply to the messages you receive until you pay a Mactel subscription with the MacTel GOLD supplement. However, this can be arranged easily enough - please see the Subscriptions information on this system.
Since we have been Internet sites, we have found it most useful to write to shareware developers, and to set up deals with companies in the States and the UK. Once you are aware of the possibility, you suddenly notice that many people you want to communicate with have access to Internet, and you will have the means to communicate free of call charges with people in Canada, Australia, USA and everywhere else that is connected to the Internet.
There are also extensive News Areas which are available on part of Internet, called USENET (US educational network) and the most interesting conferences from UseNet are available on MacTel for you to read and contribute to, providing you are a Gold subscriber.
For five times as much - £10 a month, plus your phone bill, you can have access to a system like Demon, and have full access to the Internet including "FTP", plus the items you have on MacTel. FTP is the means by which you "walk" into other computers with a guest access. After the novelty of this wears off, what really lasts, and is useful is worldwide electronic Mail.
If you do not need FTP, For £5 month and 44p a minute, you can use Applelink and get Internet access to the same level provided by MacTel. Compuserve, CIX and Americal On line (AOL) provide Internet access. But MacTel is by far the cheapest means you will find of getting Internet access.
Finally, where our system helps you most is in the interface. You do not need to learn an arcane language of Unix commands, or run software that is notoriously unfriendly, and log on to strange UNIX servers somewhere. You use the friendly graphical user interface of FirstClass, and send mail to the internet address of your friends, just adding the comma and the word Internet, at the end of the To: field.
If you are interested in having access to Internet, please leave a message for Sysop, with Credit Card details, and you will be upgraded within a day or two. It is not necessary to be a MacTel subscriber to make use of this exciting new service. Details of subs are on this disk.
We will not automatically, but reserve the right to charge 5p per k of files received using Listserv (Pseudo FTP).
