Ford To Offer Employees Home PCs (fwd)

[Max Sawicky]

. . .
Then there are my UAW electrical pals like Ralph.  Ralph already has
some sort of mysterious high speed cable hook-up to the internet.  It's
mysterious to me anyway.  I got a lousy average 48k bps connection and
Ralphie is on there at light speed.  After this profit sharing check I
expect to see a tractor trailer unloading a super computer into Ralph's
garage.   Tom


>>>>>>>>>

It's not so mysterious.  I get a DSL line from
Bell Atlantic.  It costs $50 a month (not including
ISP provider, about $10/mo.), about what
we pay here for cable plus some movie channels.
It's about ten times as fast as your modem.  Not
always tho, because a slow web site/server is
going to be slow no matter what you have.

Setting it up was pretty simple.  You need a network
card and some kind of modem-like gadget (sometimes
called a "bridge device.")  The line uses your
regular phone wires, and you can use a phone at
the same time you're online (and you're always
online; no dialup).  Somebody has to come to the
house to split your phone line and run the wires.
In the deal I got, Bell basically gave
me a network card and pseudo-modem for free.
Installation was free too.

The main advantages are avoiding the hassle of
dial-up, having access to the regular phone,
and downloading files.  Some web sites speed
up a lot, many do not.

max