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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scrapps who wrote (12892)	2/18/1998 8:37:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 22053

New 'Busy Signal' Study Rates 90 National Internet Service Providers By Call Completion Rate and Average Connect Speed PR Newswire - February 18, 1998 05:20 %CPR %MLM %PUB V%PRN P%PRN LITTLETON, Colo., Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM Connect was named best Dial-Up Internet Service Provider by Boardwatch Magazine after completion of an exhaustive new study of dial-up Internet access performance. The study, conducted January 1, 1998 through February 1, 1998 covered 90 national dialup service providers who each offered dialup access in at least 25 area codes across the country. Over 145,000 calls were made to 450 points of presence across the United States during the 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM prime usage period for dial-up Internet service. The study was designed to calculate call completion rates and busy signals for the 90 national service providers, along with average modem connect speeds. According to Boardwatch Editor Jack Rickard, "Customer dissatisfaction with Internet Service Providers is growing and is beginning to dramatically increase churn rates as dialup customers look for alternatives. Virtually all of it centers around one topic _- busy signals. We wanted to see if it was really a problem. It is." Call completion rates ranged from a low of 63.66% at Internet Hotline to a high of 97.85% at GroundZer0 Internet. At the low end, this means a little more than one out of every three calls is greeted with a busy signal. At the high end, slightly over 2 calls per hundred get a busy signal. The other surprise in the test data centered on average modem connect speeds. The test used both modems based on Rockwell's K56flex technology and 3COM's x2 technology to take advantage of 56 Kbps dialup connections where available. "We have assumed for nearly a year that these were two essentially peer technologies," said Rickard. "They are not." The average connect speed across all 450 ports was 32,568 bits per second. But for K56flex ports the average was 30,849 bps compared to an average 45,192 bps for x2 ports. "Basically, the x2 ISPs had a huge advantage with regards to connect speed," admitted Rickard. The final ranking of the Top Ten Dialup ISPs used a combination of call completion rate and average connect speed, weighted somewhat heavily in favor of call completion rate as the important factor. BOARDWATCH TOP TEN DIAL-UP INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS ISP ATTEMPTS CONNECTS COMP SPEED VALUE IBM Connect 1886 1802 95.55% 45780 141.33 TEK Interactive Group 1765 1606 90.99% 45350 136.34 MCI 1881 1714 91.12% 44860 135.98 Micronet 1669 1457 87.30% 45590 132.89 MindSpring 1585 1468 92.62% 40080 132.70 GroundZer0 1351 1322 97.85% 34830 132.68 Fnet Corp 1539 1478 96.04% 34630 130.67 TDSNET 1380 1313 95.14% 35220 130.36 Log On America 1383 1286 92.99% 35620 128.61 WebUSA Internet Service 1902 1822 95.79% 32770 128.56 America Online, widely perceived as the busy signal bad-boy of the Internet over the past year, has added a large number of modems in the interim and just recently raised their Dialup access price from $19.95 to $21.95 per month. They did rank in the bottom third of the 90 services tested at position number 62 with an average call completion rate of 87.1% -- about two points below the 89.06% average of the test. But they were by no means the worst in the pile. IBM Connect was selected as best performing Dialup Provider based on a call completion rate of 95.55% and an average x2 connect speed of 45780 bps across 1,802 completed calls to different IBM ports across the country. "They don't fail, and they don't slow down," said Rickard of IBM. "We barely considered them a dial-up provider before this study. We do now." IBM had recently announced a change in flat-rate pricing from $19.95 for unlimited service to $19.95 for the first 100 hours with a $1.95 per hour surcharge for hours in excess of 100 per month. GroundZer0 technically had the best call completion rate at 97.85%. They completed an impressive 1322 of 1351 primetime calls over a 30 day period, issuing just 29 busy signal/no connects during the entire period. Full details of testing for all 90 national Dial-Up Internet Service Providers will be published in the Winter '98 Directory of Internet Service Providers -_ a 550 page quarterly directory listing over 4600 Internet Service Providers operating in the United States and Canada. Available at $9.95 plus $4 shipping and handling. The Directory issue will be released at the Internet Service Provider Convention (ISPCON) scheduled for March 16-19 in Baltimore Maryland. ISPCON has emerged as the annual meeting for Internet Service Providers from around the world with over 4000 ISP representatives expected for the spring event. Details on ISPCON can be obtained at ispcon.com. Boardwatch Magazine is the leading monthly trade publication for Internet Service Providers. The quarterly Directory is considered the most comprehensive guide to Internet service published. Details of both publications at boardwatch.com or by voice at 800-933-6038. SOURCE Boardwatch Magazine /CONTACT: Jack Rickard of Boardwatch Magazine, 303-973-6038/ /Web site: boardwatch.com

To: Scrapps who wrote (12892)	2/18/1998 10:36:00 AM
From: Moonray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

3com Weather Report: Calif. Rain Breaks El Nino Record Tuesday February 17 11:50 PM EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Rainfall in storm-soaked California is already nearing the total amount for 1983, the last year El Nino-driven tempests battered the state, meteorologists said Tuesday. As San Francisco cleaned up after a fresh storm front pushed through Monday, forecasters at the National Weather Service said the city had received a total of 34.88 inches of rain since July 1. That compared with total of 38.17 inches for the entire 1982-83 season, a "monster" year for rainfall as an El Nino warming of Pacific waters sent storm after storm crashing into the California coast, causing widespread floods and landslide damages. "It certainly seems likely that we will break the all-time record for February precipitation," said Jim Carroll of the National Weather Service. "We are currently in the second wettest February on record, and we still have half the month to go." Forecasters said another storm promising up to an inch of rain would hit northern California Thursday, followed by a stronger system Saturday. "They are still just lining up out there waiting to come in," Carroll said. Residents and relief teams worked up and down the state Tuesday, taking advantage of a break between fronts to buttress defenses against the next storm system. In the town of San Leandro near San Francisco, residents of several houses threatened by a slow-moving mudslide paid engineers to lift their houses off their foundations in an effort to keep damage to a minimum. To the north, in the Russian River resort town of Rio Nido, more residents were allowed quick, supervised visits to retrieve valuables from homes threatened by a sodden hillside which geologists say could collapse at any time, burying the structures in some 250,000 cubic yards of mud. Teams made up of state, local, federal damage assessment officials began visiting communities around the state Tuesday to develop preliminary reports to determine eligibility for disaster assistance funding. State officials have estimated that the storms, which have been blamed for ten deaths, have caused close to $300 million in damages so far, and predict the bill will rise as more storms ride in from the Pacific. "The really important thing to remember about this disaster is that we are not out of it yet," said Paul Jacks, deputy state coordinating officer for this season's storms. Gov. Pete Wilson has advanced $4 million to cities and counties to help pay for the clean-up -- adding to $11 million in federal aid made available when President Clinton declared much of the state a disaster area last week. Officials at the state Office of Emergency Services (OES) said the situation appeared largely under control, with no major flood threat on the immediate horizon. But they added that the next set of storms, and forecasts of more stormy weather for months to come, meant it was too early to relax yet. "It is anticipated that it may run through June. When you think about it, including the snow melt-off, it is unpredictable," said OES spokeswoman Susie Wong. "We anticipate springing into action once the storm systems begin moving through again." Tornado hits; Florida mops up Tuesday February 17 5:03 PM EST INDIATLANTIC, Fla., Feb. 17 (UPI) People across Florida are mopping up after as many as seven tornadoes and several other severe storms raked the state during the past two days. A tornado touched down today in Indiatlantic, damaging between 50 and 100 homes, a Winn-Dixie supermarket, a health club, and a gas station. Homeowner Judy Blankenship was sitting in her living room when the tornado started removing her roof. She says, "I just went into the hallway. It didn't bother me." Many cars also lost their windows to the twister, but there were no injuries. Authorities think a small tornado touched down in Belleview, lifting a large tree from outside Don Moody's house and hurling it through his bathroom window. There is still a great deal of flooding in Marion County. Department of Transportation workers are filling a 50-foot-wide and 80-foot-deep sinkhole along the Gilchrist/Alachua county line that was one of two that appeared overnight. Five other tornadoes were spotted in Pinellas, Orange and Volusia counties where some damage was reported. The normal wintertime dry season has been anything but dry everywhere in Florida with may cities recording double-digit rain levels in December as the result of the El Nino weather phenomenon. o~~~ O