Connectivity Providers Database

From: Ng Fo <Ng.Fo@hk.super.net> To: quail@xylogics.com Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 13:30:45 +0800 ----------------------- ------------------ DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS HONG KONG SUPERNET ----------------------- ------------------ Sign-up Fee and Minimum Monthly Fee: HK$ 175 Peak Time Connect Charge: HK$ 25 per hour Off-Peak Time Connect Charge: HK$ 10 per hour DESCRIPTION Supernet Dial-up service is designed to meet the needs of indi- viduals and small businesses desiring a low cost means of access- ing the Internet. Supernet Dial-up service minimally requires you to have a personal computer equipped with standard serial commun- ications software and a modem attached to a telephone line. Sub- scribers gain access by dialing a Hong Kong telephone number and connecting to the Supernet dial-up modem pool. The one time sign-up fee for Supernet Dial-up service is HK$ 175. The monthly minimum fee is HK$ 175 per month. This monthly fee includes: [*] LOGIN IDs ON THE SUPERNET UNIX SERVER Each Supernet subscriber receives a login ID on the Supernet UNIX Server with full access to the Internet. Included are personal electronic mail (email) boxes and individual Internet email ad- dresses. The Supernet UNIX Server provides numerous software utilities including the ability to send and receive files from anywhere on the Internet utilizing File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and interactive terminal sessions utilizing Telnet. Subscribers will have access to nearly 2000 special interest discussion groups on USENET News including ClariNet commercial news feed with full United Press International newswire and many special- interest features. There are many utilities available on the Su- pernet Server to assist you in navigating the Internet including: Archie, and Gopher, and WAIS. For even more functionality and ease of use, login IDs for machines and remote networks may be created for use with the UUCP, SLIP or PPP protocols. [*] INITIAL CONNECTION TIME INCLUDED: up to 17.5 Hours per Month Connection time is charged at two rates depending on time of day. Peak time is between 0900 and 2100, and Off-peak time is from 2100 to 0900 the next day. During peak time, connection charge is HK$25 per hour. During Off-peak the connection charge is HK$10 per hour. Our monthly minimum billing is HK$175 which corresponds to a 7 hour peak, or 17.5 hour off peak credit per month. If your connect time doesn't exceed these amounts, you pay just HK$175 per month. [*] ON-LINE STORAGE INCLUDED - No Charge for Temporay Storage Included in the HK$175 per month minimum billing is 2.5 Megabytes of on-line storage. If subscribers exceed this amount, they will be charged at the rate of HK$ 20 per month per Megabyte. A single measurement is taken daily and then averaged over the 30 day bil- ling period. Since we make only one measurement per day, this means that you may store large files for short periods and not be charged any additional amount. [*] HIGH VOLUME DISCOUNTS Customers requiring larger amounts of resources should consider Supernet Dedicated Internet Access. It provides 24 hour/day 7 day/week single line connection, 100 login IDs and 100MB of disk space, and 1GB of transfer volume for only HK$3500 per month. It may be implemented utilizing dial-up, or private leased circuit technology. [*] PREPAYMENT DISCOUNTS Billing is performed monthly. Payment is due within 30 days of invoice date. Prepayment discounts are available: Pay for 6 months and save 10% (HK$105). Pay for 12 months and save 20% (HK$420), which corresponds to a minimum monthly charge of just HK$140 per month! To register, please complete the New User Account Form and UNIX Login ID Form and return them to us along with the HK $175 sign-up fee. FURTHER INFORMATION Please read 'Frequently Asked Questions About Hong Kong Super- net' -------------------------------------------------------------------- Hong Kong Supernet HKUST RandD Corporation Ltd. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Clear Water Bay, Kowloon HONG KONG Phone: (+852)358-7924 Fax: (+852)358-7925 email: Info@HK.Super.NET 23Oct93 -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------ ------------------ UNIX LOGIN ID FORM HONG KONG SUPERNET ------------------ ------------------ Please complete a copy of this form for each UNIX ID desired. One form should be filled out for each individual desiring a lo- gin. Additional logins may be requested using this form at any time. Please complete the form in English. If you are a new customer, leave this blank. Other wise, enter your the account number listed on one of your HK Supernet billing statement. HK Supernet Billing Account Number ___________ Enter the full name of the person who will use this UNIX Login ID. If this is the same person listed on the New Customer Account Form, you may write `SAME' here. Please enter all information re- quested. Note: Your formal email address will be of the form `First.Middle.Last@HongKong.Super.NET' First Name ________________ Middle Name _______________ Last Name ________________ Address ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ Telephone ____________________ Fax ____________________ UNIX LOGIN ID UNIX Login IDs are limited to 8 characters. Please include a first choice and a second choice as common names may already be taken. Individual login names are up to you, but we recommend you follow one of these conventions: First Initial, Middle Initial, Last Name: rdjones, ckyip, First Name, Last Initial: bettyg, peterk, samsonj Initals, Only: cky, rdj, bg First Choice: |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| Second Choice: |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| PASSWORD NOTIFICATION(CHOOSE ONE) We can notify you of your password when your account is created. Since the password con trols access to your account, it must be kept se cret. We can notify you fastest via fax, post, or tele- phone. If you are difficult to reach and have voice mail, please indicate whether it is OK to leave the information as a message. For security, the contact indicated on the New Customer Account Form (if they are different from the account ID applicant) will also be notified (via email or fax) anytime a new account is created. [ ] By Secure Fax # ___________ [ ] By email __________________ [ ] By Post _______________________________________________ [ ] By Telephone # ____________ [ ] OK to Leave Message All new users must also complete read and sign the Terms and Con- ditions page. Fax or mail all completed documents to: Hong Kong Supernet HKUST RandD Corp, Ltd. The Hong Kong Universit of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, HONG KONG Phone: (+852)-358-7924 Fax: (+852)-358-7925 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For Internal Use: DR:________ PB:_________ UL:_________ 23Oct93 -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------ New Customer Account Form HONG KONG SUPERNET ------------------------- ------------------ All new customers should complete this form. Existing customers wishing to create new user IDs need only complete the Unix Login ID Form. Please complete this form in English. Please enter the name of the organization that will be responsi- ble for payments. If you are an individual then leave this entry blank. Full Company Name _______________________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- If you are an individual, enter your name. If you are an organi- zation, enter name of person or department bills should go to (`accounts payable', for instance). This will be used as the con- tact information for any matters related to billing. First Name ______________ Middle Name _____________ Last Name ________________ Address ________________________________________________________ Telephone ____________________ Fax ____________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PAYMENT OPTIONS (check only one) [ ] By Cheque [ ] By Autopay If you choose `By Cheque', we expect payments by cheque, via re- turn post. If you choose `By Autopay', we will automati cally deduct the amount owed via the HK autopay system. Please obtain the Autopay Information Form from us. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SERVICES DESIRED Sign-up Fee (check only one) [ ] Dial-up $ 175 [ ] Dedicated $ 3500 The sign-up fee must be paid by all new customers. This fee must be received by us before we can initiate service ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Optional Prepayment Discounts Dial-up (check only one) [ ] 6 Months $ 945 [ ] 12 Months $ 1680 Dedicated (check only one) [ ] 6 Months $ 18900 [ ] 12 Months $ 33600 Significant savings can be realized by pre paying. 10% for 6 months, 20% for 12 months. For Dial-up, the amounts saved are as follow (HK$): 6 months: $105. 12 months: $420. For Dedicated, 6 months: $2100. Dedicated 12 months: $8400. If you select a pre- payment option, you may either waive the sign-up fee by mailing a cheque for the full amount to us, or just mail the sign-up fee now and we will invoice you the prepayment amount on your first month's bill. --------------------------------------------------------------------- New customers must also complete at least one Unix Login-ID Form and the Terms and Conditions page for each Unix Account ID desired. Mail or Fax all forms to us: Hong Kong Supernet HKUST RandD Corp, Ltd. Hong Kong Universit of Science and Technology Clear Water Bay, Kowloon HONG KONG Phone: (+852)-358-7924 Fax: (+852)-358-7925 -------------------------------------------------------------------- For Internal Use: Dd ________ PB:_________ A/N:________ 23Oct93 -------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------- ------------------ TERMS AND CONDITIONS HONG KONG SUPERNET ----------------------- ------------------ All Hong Kong Supernet customers should read and understand the following. Please sign and date this agreement and return to us along with your New Customer Account Form and UNIX Login ID Form. 1. The following words have these meanings in this Agreement un- less the context demands otherwise:- "Services" -- Access to the Internet and any ancillary Internetwork-based technologies, consulting and other service offerings from time to time provided by Hong Kong Supernet. "Subscriber" -- Any person who has requested to use the Services. "Hong Kong Supernet" -- Hong Kong University of Science and Tech- nology RandD Corporation Limited and all other entities in volved in the provision of the Services. "Third Party Content" -- All information, software and other con- tent that can be accessed through or by virtue of the Services. 2. The Subscriber must pay Hong Kong Supernet any initial sign-up fee or monthly fee, and all other charges as may from time to time be notified to Subscriber by Hong Kong Supernet in accor- dance with this Agreement. The Subscriber must pay all applicable taxes relating to the use of the Services by the Subscriber. Sub- scriber shall be responsible and liable for and shall indeminify Hong Kong Supernet in respect of liability for any and all use of the Subscriber's account and all actions and costs incurred and for all use of the Services accessed through the Subscriber's account(s) or its passwords(s) or otherwise by virtue of the pro- vision of the Services to the Subscriber. 3. Unless otherwise agreed a Subscriber's right to use the Ser- vices, or that of Subscriber's designated users, is not transfer- able and is subject to any limits or restrictions established by Hong Kong Supernet. 4. The Subscriber is responsible for and must provide all tele- phone and other equipment necessary to access the Services. Hong Kong Supernet reserves the right to disconnect or deactivate any subscriber equipment or software at any time without prior no- tice. In practice, this will only be done in situations where the equipment or software is interfering with other services of Hong Kong Supernet. Subscriber must comply with Hong Kong Supernet's requirements as regards access equipment and/or mode of access to and/or use of the Services. 5. The Services are supplied on an "as is" basis without any ex- press or implied warranties save for those warranties implied or imposed by and which cannot be excluded or restricted under Hong Kong law. The entire risk as to quality and performance of the Services is with the user. In no event will Hong Kong Supernet or its employees be liable to anyone for any special, incidental or consequential damages arising from the use of (or inability to use) the Services, including, without limitation, damages result- ing from lost data or lost profits. 6. Hong Kong Supernet reserves the right to amend any particular program, information or facility which it provides or may provide through the Services. Subscriber agrees to abide by all applica- ble laws (whether Hong Kong or the laws of any relevant jurisdic- tion) relating to the use of the Services and any Third Party Content. Subscriber must abide by generally accepted rules of conduct relating to proper use of Internet resources. The defini- tion and interpretation of what constitutes such acts remain the sole right of management of Hong Kong Supernet. Persistent viola- tion will be grounds for termination of this Agreement. 7. By one month's advance notice published over the UNIX Server, Hong Kong Supernet may modify and amend this Agreement, services offered, operating procedures or any of its service fees, late charges and prices and may discontinue or revise any or all other aspects of the Services at its sole discretion. The Subscriber may, by serving one month's notice in writing to Hong Kong Super- net, terminate this Agreement. 8. Hong Kong Supernet will invoice the Subscriber on a monthly basis by post, electronic mail and/or facsimile transmission. Payment is due for the full invoiced amount. If the Subscriber does not pay within 30 days after the invoice date, late charges of 1.5% per month will be due and payable with respect to the outstanding balance. 9. If the Subscriber is in breach of any of the terms of this Agreement, including late payment of any invoices, then Hong Kong Supernet may, at its sole discretion either suspend the Subscriber's access to and use of the Services until such breach is remedied or terminate this Agreement and the Subscriber's ac- cess to and use of the Services. Reinstatement will require full payment of outstanding balance, plus applicable initial sign-up fee. 10. Should Hong Kong Supernet suspend or terminate the Services pursuant to Clause 9 the Subscriber has no right to any data stored and Hong Kong Supernet will be under no obligation to make such data or any copies of it available to Subscriber in any form what soever. Should this Agreement terminate for any reason what- soever Subscriber data stored on Hong Kong Supernet's facilities will be explicitly erased without prior notice. 11. Neither the course of conduct between the parties nor trade practice will modify the provisions of the Agreement. If any pro- vision of this Agreement is determined to be invalid the other provisions shall remain in full force and effect. The provisions of all obligations of and all restrictions on the Subscriber will survive the termination of this Agreement. 12. The Agreement is governed by the laws of Hong Kong and the Subscriber hereby submits to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Hong Kong. Signature _______________________ Date _____________ Hong Kong Supernet HKUST RandD Corp, Ltd. Hong Kong University of Science andTechnology Clear Water Bay, Kowloon HONG KONG Phone: (+852)-358-7924 Fax: (+852)-358-7925 23Oct93 -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- ------------------ Dial-In Instructions HONG KONG SUPERNET -------------------- ------------------ WHAT YOU WILL NEED: [ ] User-ID In order to connect to the Hong Kong Supernet Systems, you will need to obtain a User-ID. This is obtained by filing out a the Customer Information Form, available from HK Supernet. [ ] Communications Software If you are using a personal computer, you will need a communica- tions software. This oftentimes comes with your stand ard soft- ware. If you are using Microsoft Windows on a PC, look in the Accessories Menu for the selection entitled Terminal. If you are using just DOS, you will need to acquire a separate commu- nications program. There are many commercial and shareware communications software packages. They are often included when purchasing modems. [ ] Modem A modem is a piece of hardware which allows your computer to communicate over the telephone lines. If you have a PC, you can choose either a built-in modem card, or an external modem. They both perform the same. External ones allow you the option of connecting or easily transporting them to other PCs. The most important characteristic of a modem is transmission speed. The faster the speed, the higher the price. Hong Kong Su- pernet supports all standard speeds up to V.32bis (14,400 bits per second). Generally speaking, the faster the mo dem you buy, the more performance and economy you will receive from your Hong Kong Supernet connection. Another important characteristic of modems is error correction. This will eliminate garbage charac- ters generated by noise on the telephone line. While Hong Kong telephone connections are generally very clean, it is still a very good idea to purchase a modem with error correction. Hong Kong Supernet supports V.42bis / MNP4 error correction. Configuration Once your modem and communications software are working together, you will need to set some parameters to connect to HK Supernet; Find your settings->communications, or similarly named menu in- side your communications software. You will need to set the fol- lowing items: PARITY: None DATA BITS: 8 STOP BITS: 1 FLOW CONTROL: Hardware Other parameters such as COM1 or COM2, and Baud Rate are dependent upon the type of modem you are using and how it is configured. For Baud Rate always choose the fastest rate that your modem's documentation says it will support. Telephone Numbers: 719-4125 (Telebit WorldBlazers - 16 lines) 719-4225 (ZyXEL U1496S - 4 lines) LOGIN PROCEDURES: 1. Command your modem to dial 719-4125 2. Wait for your modem to issue a CONNECT message 3. Type <RETURN> <RETURN>. This is the same as <ENTER> <ENTER>. 4. You should see the following prompts; Enter the commands in Boldface. Replace User-ID and Password with those supplied to you by HK Supernet. Annex Command Line Interpreter * Copyright 1991 Xylogics, Inc. Checking authorization, Please wait... Annex login: User-ID Annex Password: Password ts1-annex: rlogin hk Welcome to Hong Kong Supernet hk.super.net% You are now logged on to the HK Supernet UNIX Server with full access to The Internet ! 25Oct93 -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- ------------------ Frequently Asked Questions HONG KONG SUPERNET -------------------------- ------------------ TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE INTERNET The Internet is not a company. It is a vast, distributed, cooperative computer network. It currently consists of an estimated 14 thousand networks, 100,000 hosts, and 20 million users world-wide, and is growing very, very rapidly. Almost anyone can join directly by getting a con nection and a machine and agreeing to use something technical called "The TCP/IP Protocol", which is just a common language all the computer systems agree to use in order to communicate. Although the Internet began as just a network to connect government research labs and universities within the Un- ited States, it has grown to the point where over half of its members are commercial or ganizations, with over 30% of the total networks located outside of the USA. WHAT IS AN "INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER" ? Internet Service Providers, like HK Supernet, are in dependent companies who provide access to the global Internet- work. HK Supernet also offers expertise on all matters re- lating to Internetworking technology. Internet working is a solu- tion to getting computers of all different types to communicate with each other. Our main service, however, is access to the glo- bal Internet, and educational services on how to utilize it. HOW IS HK SUPERNET DIFFERENT FROM OTHER ON-LINE SERVICES ? Other on-line service offer databases, shareware libraries and other information services. In the case of HK Supernet, most of the value in our service is access to the vast Internetwork which inc- ludes thousands of information services. The majority of these ser- vices are free of charge however, there are a growing number of valuable commercial information services that charge their own fees. In either case, you are simply using the Internet as a transmission medium to get access to this information. WHY IS GETTING CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET BETTER ? Getting a connection to other on-line services gets you a cl- osed set of functions. On the Internet, you get ac cess to a much larger and growing number of information sources. Many on-line services offer electronic mail within their own systems. With Hong Kong Supernet, you still get access to all the major on-line service's via their Inter net email gateways, but in add- ition, you get access to the tens of millions of direct Internet email users as well. Oth er services do not give their users access to a global data network that can transmit data around the globe in under a second. IS IT TRUE THAT THE INTERNET IS HARD TO USE ? There is a trade-off between regular on-line services and Internet access. With on-line services, you usually, get a simple, menu-driven system that is fairly easy to use, but restricted in its abil- ities. With Internet access, you trade off some ease in exchange for a great deal more power to do more things. The Internet is evolving, and there are many new tools that make things easier. HK Supernet realizes that education plays a vital role in learn- ing to use the Internet, and therefore offers classes at no ad- ditional charge to its customers. HK Supernet also provides telephone assistance, help documents, and books. WILL I HAVE TO LEARN UNIX TO USE THE INTERNET ? Depending on what you want to do with your Internet access, you may need to learn a few commands on how to list directories, rename and remove files, etc. For the purposes of down-loading files or sending electronic mail, these commands shouldn't take more than several min utes to master. Most users will spend most of their time inside a few utilities like electronic mail, or usenet news. Again, we provide tutorial information to make it easy for beginners. WHAT SOFTWARE DO I NEED ON MY PERSONAL COMPUTER ? You can use any standard serial communications software package. Many systems come with the software included; Windows 3 for IBM-compatibles includes an applications called "Terminal" that will work, for instance. If you don't have the software you can either purchase a commercial package from a software dealer, or obtain shareware. Pro-comm and Crosstalk for the IBM and White Knight for the MacIntosch are examples of commercial packages that will work. WHAT KIND OF MODEM SHOULD I BUY ? The most important aspect to consider when selecting a modem is speed, measured in bits-per-second (bps). The faster the modem, the higher the price. The faster the modem is, however, the happier you will be with your HK Supernet connection. Modem technology is moving very fast however, and today the best value can be had by purchasing a V.32bis/14,400bps modem. Slightly less expensive V.32/9600bps modems will give satisfactory results. Error correction is also a very important feature which prevents telephone line noise from interfering with your transmis sions. Compression makes your data transmissions more efficient, Try to buy a modem that includes V.42 error correction with V.42bis compression. To summarize, a V.32bis/V.42bis modem is best. HK Supernet uses Telebit Worldblazer and ZyXEL U1496S+ modems. WorldBlazers have superior perform ance over noisy IDD connections. ZyXELs support a propri etary 19,200bps speed. If either of these features are important to you, you may wish to consider these particular brands. If your budget is limited, you may purchase a slower, V.22/1200bps or V22bis/2400bps modem which will also work with HK Supernet dial-in modems. WHY DON'T YOU CHARGE DIFFERENTLY FOR DIFFERENT MODEM SPEEDS ? Other providers charge more for connections with faster modems. We feel that the faster your modem, the more efficiently you use our facilities, which saves us money. We also want to keep our billing overhead low by keeping it simple by charging just one rate. Why do you charge different rates for different times of the day ? Our normal dial-in charge is HK$25/hour between 9am and 9pm. We discount this to HK$10/hour at other times in order to encourage use of our modem pool which would otherwise go unused. DOES HK SUPERNET PROVIDE FULL INTERNET ACCESS ? Yes. Sometimes BBS and other on-line service provid ers will advertise that they have Internet access. Usually, they don't explain what kind of access that is, and what services their users can use. Oftentimes, their services are limited to indirect services such as electronic and Usenet News. Some do not allow you to participate by posting your own news articles. They probably do not allow you to trans fer files at high speed with ftp or make interactive connec tions anywhere on the Internet with telnet either. Neither do they allow real-time world-wide group conversations with IRC chat either. Hong Kong Supernet has a full Internet connection which means that our customers enjoy all these ser- vices and more. HOW IS SUPERNET CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET ? Supernet operates a dedicated (24hour per day) 64 thousand bit per second, private leased circuit connecting its Hong Kong facilities to Performance Systems Interna tional (PSI) in Santa Clara, California, USA. PSI operates a state-of-the-art Frame Relay network which spans the USA. They provide HK Supernet with high-reliability connectivity to all the major Interex- changes - CIX West, and MAE East. EXPLAIN HOW SUPERNET DIAL-UP CHARGES WORK First, our basic notion of charging revolves around a Billing Account. This corresponds to a single company or in dividual to whom we send one bill. This Billing Account can have up to UNIX 25 login IDs associated with it. Each one of these IDs represent one person (or machine) which may dial-in. Our minimum billing for a standard dial-in billing ac count is HK$175 per month. We charge for two basic kinds of resources - disk space and connect time. We may charge for specialized services such as outgoing modem in the fu ture. Each billing account can store a total of up to 2.5Mega bytes(MB) of data at no charge beyond the HK$175 mini mum monthly fee. Beyond 2.5MB we charge HK$20 per megabyte month. For instance, if you your billing account has 3 logins with a total of 3.5MB of disk usage, the charge would be (3.5mb usage - 2.5mb included at no charge) x HK$20 for a total of = HK$10. The disk billing is measured once per day (at a random time), then averaged over the 30 day billing period. This way, if you may use your account to temporarily store files in transit for little or no charge, as long as you delete them as soon as you are finished. Connection time is charged at two rates depending on time of day. Peak time is between 0900 and 2100, and Off peak time is from 2100 to 0900 the next day. During peak time, connection charge is HK$25 per hour. During Off-peak the connection charge is HK$10 per hour. If you are dialled in when the periods transition, we will change the rate accordingly. Here is an example bill for a billing account with one user login. During the 30 day billing cycle, this user was con nected 4 hours during peak-time and 3.2 hours during off peak. In addi- tion, he had 1.5MB of disk usage above the 2.5 which come for free: Resource Amount Rate HK$ Connect Time: Peak-time 4.0 HRS x $25 = $100 Off-peak 3.2 HRS x $10 = $32 Disk Usage: 1.5 MB x $20 = $30 Total: $162 Minimum Billing: $175 As you can see in this example, the user's total charges are HK$162. Since this is below the HK$175 minimum per billing ac- count, they are charged HK$175. IF I AM CONNECTED FOR 1 HOUR AND 1 MINUTE, AM I CHARGED FOR 2 HOURS ? No. We charge within the nearest second, so there is no worry about getting charged for time you weren't actually connected. HOW CAN I MINIMIZE MY BILL ? There are alot of ways; First, a fast modem will mimim ize connect time. Second, if you remember to delete your files, you can save money on disk charges. Third, you can take advantage of low, off-peak connect time. Fourth, you can arrange for your computer to call and transfer your data automatically. WHAT IF I RUN UP A REALLY HUGE BILl ? For each dial-up billing account, we limit the charges to HK$3500 per month. For example, if you dialled in and stayed connected continuously for 4 days, your connect charges would exceed $3500, but after this point, we would automatically con- sider you in our Dedicated category of customers, which gives you flat-rate access and higher re source limits (100mb of storage, 100 logins, 1GB of transfer credits). ARE THERE ANY HIDDEN COSTS ? Beyond the charges as described, there are no additional charges from HK Supernet. You must of course, con sider the cost of operating your PC, modem, and the telephone line which you use to dial-in. DO YOU OFFER OVERSEAS SERVICE ? As far as dial-in goes, we currently operate only our Hong Kong dial-in modem pool at this time. Foreign con cerns wish- ing to dial-in must incur an international direct dial rate from wherever they are into Hong Kong. For areas immediately adjacent to Hong Kong such as Macau, and Guangzhou, this may very well be the most reasonable choice. CAN MY COMPUTER CATCH A VIRUS ? There is no recorded incident of a computer catching a virus through a dial-in service. However if you download an executable program, such as one from a shareware archive, you are exposing yourself to that possibility. Note, however that you can download Virus checker programs which make things a little safer. WHAT ARE SOME BUSINESS APPLICATIONS OF THE INTERNET ? One possible use is to use the Internet for cheap international communications. Suppose your company is collab orating with 2 other companies, one in the UK, one in the USA, and you need to exchanged data rapidly. If the com panies in the USA and UK also arranged for Internet access in their areas (we have lists of providers), then you could transfer the equivalent of a floppy disk full of information in just a few minutes. Another growing application is `fax tunnelling', whereby users avoid international long-distance telephone charges by sending electronic mail over the internet which converts to fax messages only when they arrive in their local calling area. Companies may also find access to the vast and grow ing number of information services valuable - there are al ready hundreds of libraries already on-line. DESCRIBE USENET NEWS Usenet news is a distributed bulletin board system where anyone may read and post articles in any one of over 2000 topics or categories covering many different topics in cluding culture, politics, science, computers, etc. It is a very good resource to find out solutions to very specific technical problems, oftentimes, and also an excellent place to broad cast your opinions, or listen to others on any subject near and dear to your heart. TELL ME MORE ABOUT CLARINET NEWS Clarinet news is a special category of Usenet news which is actually UPI commercial news wire. Users can only read these groups, not post to them. They are organized into categories including financial, headlines, features and tech nical categories. This is not a service available everywhere on the Internet, HK Supernet has paid for a subscription to the service. WHAT IS GOPHER ? Gopher is a software tool that makes navigating the In ternet much easier. When you type `gopher' at the command prompt, it will take you out of UNIX and into a simple system of menu lists which you can select by number. HK Supernet operates its own gopher server which provides information about ourselves. You may explore the hundred of other gopher servers on the Internet by just selecting them on our server's menu list. Since gopher makes the Internet so much easier to use, HK Supernet plans to expand its gopher server. Companies looking to market their services on the Internet may consider using gopher as a presentation medium. WHAT IS IRC CHAT ? IRC Chat is a software tool that lets you converse with other people who are currently logged in anywhere on the Internet. It is sort of like a dinner table discussion where you are able to see many people's responses at the same time, and put in your own comments to the group as well. WHAT IS `TALK' ? Talk is software that allows you to converse with one other person logged in anywhere on the Internet. Their hosts must support the talk software also, of course, but this is a very inexpensive way for you to converse with your friends overseas when compared to IDD phone conversations ! WHAT IS WAIS ? Wais stands for "Wide Area Information Service", and is a system for searching the network for information. You provide a set of keywords, and it will fetch documents matching those keywords. It is a very good general research tool, acting much like a reference librarian. WHAT ARE ANONYMOUS FTP ARCHIVES ? FTP stands for `File Transfer Protocol', one of the basic software utilities supported widely on the Internet. The `Anonymous' means that anyone can access these ar chives. This anonymous ftp archives are the real storehous es of free information, software, sounds and im- ages available to everyone on the Internet. WHAT IS ARCHIE ? Archie is an `archive server' system which knows about most of the anonymous FTP archives, and tells you where to find things. WHERE CAN I GO FROM HERE ? There is lots more help available on- line to HK Supernet subscribers. If you don't have your HK Supernet account yet. Fill out the New Customer Account Form, UNIX Login ID Form, and sign the Terms and Conditions form. Mail them along with a cheque for HK$175 to us. We will set up your account as soon as we receive your cheque! Hong Kong Supernet HKUST R&D Corporation, Ltd. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Clear Water Bay, Kowloon HONG KONG Phone: (+852)358-7924 Fax: (+852)358-7925 email: Info@HK.Super.NET 26Oct93 26Oct93