Online service made easier

In a contract recently signed with telecommunications company Sprint, SF State will be among the nation's first universities to provide an optional pay-only Internet service .

The service, SprintNet OnCampus, guarantees a 95 percent connect rate, but will not replace SF State's current free Internet access. It will be offered as a more reliable alternative to students weary of getting a busy signal when dialing in to the school.

Beginning next semester, SprintNet OnCampus will operate like any small commercial Internet provider, and allow all CSU campuses to participate in the program.

According to the contract, Sprint will provide local, off-campus dial-up numbers to the nearest CSU campus, supply each campus with a modem pool and provide help-desk services, the same way SF State's free service currently operates. But without the busy signal.

And it will cost.

Those who choose to participate in the program will pay $12.50 per month. The fee covers 75 hours of prime-time access (6 a.m. to 12 a.m.) and 90 hours of non prime-time access (12 a.m. to 6 a.m.). Any time beyond that will cost the user 50 cents an hour, the contract says.

The CSU system will be the first in the nation to have this type of service, according to John True, executive director of Computing Services.

"The West Coast is where it's happening," he said.

Currently, CS is working with other SF State organizations to collect demographic information on where the majority of SF State's students and faculty live. CS will use this information to tailor the university's radius of local dial-up phone numbers to provide the widest range of off-campus access, True said.

The idea of contracting out Internet service began a year ago in a discussion with all CSU Computing Services directors, True said. "We realized we would never be able to offer enough free service to keep up with the demand."

At SF State, there are currently 12,000 Internet accounts, a number that continues to grow at a rate of 200 a day, according to Academic Computing's latest figures.

"(Sprint) can do it more cheaply than we can do it ourselves. They're in the business of doing this full-time," True said.

[ back to Golden Gater Online September 19, 1995 ]

[ back to top ]