Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!chinet!patrick
From: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: PC Pursuit, is it worth it with a TB+?
Message-ID: <9713@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 1 Oct 89 06:33:51 GMT
References: <200875@hrc.UUCP>
Reply-To: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 82

In article <200875@hrc.UUCP> dan@hrc.UUCP (Dan Troxel) writes:
>
>Is it worth using the PC Pursuit Telenet lines using a Telebit Plus?
>Our calls are getting steep, and am considering Telenet. 
>
>By the way, what is their marketing number to sign up?

The rates are 30 hours for $30 per month -- OR -- 60 hours for $50
per month, in the 'family' plan.

This means under the first rate, you pay $1 per hour. Under the second
rate, you pay 83 cents per hour. 

Both types allow multiple packages. That is, you could purchase two
accounts at $50 each, and you would receive 120 hours per month for 
$100, or 60 hours per month for $60. I would say if you need to buy
more than 30 hours per month, you'd be better off (first) with the
'family membership' of 60 hours/$50 then two individual memberships
at 60/$60, then 3 individual memberships at 90/$90 then 2 family
memberships at 120/$100 in that order. 

Two family memberships gets you 120 hours per month -- or 4 hours per
night, which ought to enable you to move your mail and news, etc.

One problem is you must purchase pre-paid time (or memberships)
in advance, or you will pay BIG $$$ if you run overtime. I think
they charge somewhere around $ per hour if your package runs out.
For example, lets say you purchase the 30 hour per month package.
If you go 5 hours over -- using 35 hours in the month -- the 5 hours
of overtime costs about $20+, and for that extra money, you could
have purchased the 'family' membership and gotten an extra 30 hours.

When you sign up, they ask which kind you want, regular or family,
and how many you want of each. You can decide, and if you see that
you consistently run overtime then you call and get converted to
a larger pre-paid package.

I would suggest starting larger than necessary, and backing down to
what you realistically use, allowing a buffer of a few hours per
month. 

You will get a print out each month showing your connections and
how long they lasted; the total time used, etc.

They give a one minute grace period at the start of each connection to
allow for problems. Everything is rounded to the next highest minute,
meaning more than one minute is charged as two minutes, etc. If you
encounter line trouble, modem trouble or whatever and disconnect within
the first minute there will be no charge.

You have to keep track of which account you are on as the month goes 
along. When you see one pre-paid plan is about to run out of purchased
time and go into overtime, then you want to switch to the other account.
They may have changed this; I read something that they were going to
start allowing the accounts to be combined for billing purposes; you will
need to ask them.

They have 2400 baud outdials in almost every city they serve. The rest
are 1200 baud. Most cities have incoming 2400 baud lines as well.

They offer free tech support by connecting on their network with a collect
call to @C PURSUIT.

For more information or to sign up --

Customer Service  1-800-TELENET
By Modem: 1-800-835-3001

They accept credit cards and also can bill using 'checkfree' where you
give them an authorizatiion to draft your bank each month. Before the
charge goes through, you get the bill about ten days before, to check
over the charges.

I hope this helps you a little. I've subscribed to PC Pursuit for about
five years, and find it a very useful and economical service.



-- 
Patrick Townson 
  patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 
  FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) /  MCI Mail: 222-4956