PC Pursuit

[lauren at RAND-UNIX.ARPA]

There are some significant limitations to this service that people
should be aware of (I talked to one of the system designers)...

1) Calls are limited to one hour.
2) While they haven't implemented the restrictions yet, they are
   likely to limit both the originating and terminating ends of the
   calls to phone numbers that are a LOCAL CALL from their dialout nodes.
   This might mean, for example, that a person in West L.A. couldn't
   use the service since they are not local to the dialout node
   (which is in downtown L.A.).  The problem is that the service
   must dial out at both ends, and they are apparently unwilling to
   eat the ZUM/toll charges indefinitely.  When and how restrictions
   would be implemented (and on what basis) is still unclear, but they
   told me that something would definitely happen in the area of
   restrictions.
3) The service is really designed for individuals, not for
   commercial use.  They aren't trying to screen out the companies at 
   this time and will let them sign up, but it isn't clear what will
   happen if commercial users start clogging things up.
4) Capacity is limited.  In L.A., for example, there can only be
   a maximum of 24 users on the service at any given time.
   They can obviously expand this within some limits, but not
   indefinitely.
5) It isn't clear how good the response is going to be for many
   applications.  TELENET is always very bursty and subject to
   pretty slow throughput much of the time (as any TELENET user
   will tell you).

It's certainly an interesting service, but seems mostly oriented toward
what they originally said -- people sitting there typing at remote BBS's.

--Lauren--