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Northwest Nexus:  Why do we have the X-hour-on/y-hour-off usage
                  guidelines?


Our Personal Shell, Personal PPP, Personal SLIP, and Professional
Advantage accounts all have guidelines for how long you can be logged on
at one sitting, so that all of the users of those accounts get a chance
to use the modem lines.  We ask that you voluntarily follow these
guidelines, so that our automated attendant doesn't have to send you
tickler messages like this one, and so you don't have to read them. ;-)

We understand that you don't like being disconnected in the middle of
doing things, and we don't like having to run programs like our automated
attendant.  We're asking, therefore, for your help in monitoring your
session time and logging off before or when your session limit is reached.
That's the "voluntary" part...

...But just like the United States' "voluntary" income tax filing system,
there's a bit of consequence for those who choose not to follow the
guidelines.  When we first instituted the session guidelines, they were
just that -- guidelines, not limits --  and many people followed them.
We still prefer to run our systems based on the goodwill of all of our
users instead of rules and regulations and enforcement actions.

Not everyone's a fan of "voluntary" guidelines, though, and over time, we
found ourselves spending hours tracking down those who'd been on for
hours and hours and hours, sending them reminders, and, when those were
ignored, disconnecting the sessions manually.

As our customer base and facilities grew, however, that became
impractical, so we were forced to create an automated attendant program
that would automatically send reminder messages to those who were over
the guidelines, and then disconnect users who didn't log off themselves.

That attendant is watching all of our lines, and takes a bit of time to
get through all of them; as a result, once you've exceeded the session
limit, the attendant may disconnect you anywhere from a few to a dozen
minutes later.


What Are the Guidelines?
------------------------

Different services have different session guidelines:

     Personal PPP..........................2 hours on, then 2 hours off
     Personal SLIP
     Personal Shell

     Professional Advantage Services.......4 hours one, then 2 hours off

The guideline is just that.  If you're logged on for a shorter time, say
one hour -- we ask that you refrain from logging on for an hour
afterwards.  The idea is that you you're off as much as you're on, with
no session ever exceeding the maximum for that service.


What Are the Alternatives?
--------------------------

We realize that there are times when you might need to be online longer
at a sitting, perhaps as you await an important mail message.  We've
taken advantage of a large number of older modems we have around the
office and constructed a special long-session modem pool.  That pool
lets you stay on much longer:

     Special Long-Session Pool.............6 hours on, then 4 hours off

There's a catch, of course -- those older modems support only 14.4kbps
connections.  But this special pool is available at no extra charge, as
part of our efforts to provide you with reasonably priced flat-rate
service that's still flexible.

The special pool has separate local numbers, and not all service areas
have special-pool access numbers yet.  Use the number highest on the
list that's a local call from your location:

     Bellevue	688-0065
     Seattle		447-4001 

Other local numbers are being added as facilities are available.

If you need to be connected permanently to the Internet, our sales
department (sales@halcyon.com) can help you select the dedicated
service that best meets your needs.  At the current time, none of those
services cost less than $100/month, exclusive of telephone company line
charges.  Unfortunately, full-time connections to the Internet just
can't be provided as economically as intermittent-use, flat-rate
connections like yours.


How Can I Keep Track of How Long I've Been Connected?
-----------------------------------------------------
Don't laugh, but the simplest way is a kitchen timer, available
in stores (or kitchens ;-) everywhere. 

Some communications programs come with built-in timers; Windows 95's
Dial-Up Networking puts a timer in the box that announces your
successful connection.

One of our customers, Ken Moffat, has written a simple program for
Windows that Personal PPP and Personal SLIP customers can use to
automatically remind them when it's time to start logging out.  Ken's
program is free; point your Web Browser at

     http://www.halcyon.com/kmoffat/timesup.html

FreePPP for the Macintosh also includes a built-in timer; you can
obtain the latest version at:

     http://www.rockstar.com/

 
(21-May-96/nwnwdwht/WRD)
___________________________________________________________________________
Copyright 1996  Northwest Nexus Inc.  All Rights Reserved.
This document may not be reproduced nor redistributed in any form without
express permission; contact us at support@halcyon.com with questions.