"Big MA ISP's" public service announcement

[nobody at huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer)]

> Potentially interesting, but you  seem  to  have  left  out  a  little
> something that might be useful to know: What do the numbers represent?
> TIAC seems to have 42 of something that Ultranet has only 30  of,  but
> what?  Are these scores like basketball or golf?
> 
> | Revised 24 May 97, based on companies pages.  Contribute/Repost as you wish.
> | Cities with modem POP's.  Unless otherwise stated, $20/mo unlimited.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If it was not clear, a "POP" is ISP lingo for "point-of-presence".  The
more POPs an ISP has, the more likely it is that many homes can depend
on them with free local calls.  Just as an example, TIAC has POPs in 42
Massachusetts cities.  Usually this means that there are 4 or more towns
around those cities that also can call that ISP for free.  That tells me
that TIAC can be depended on in perhaps 200 of MA's 351 cities and towns.

> | 		42	TIAC ($30/unlimited)
> | 		30	Ultranet ($30/unlimited)
> | 		27	Shore.Net ($30/90hrs)
> | 		21	Compuserve/Sprynet*
> | 		15	MCI*
> | 		~15?	AOL
addition!	~15?	Prodigy
> | 		10	WORLD.STD ($25/50hrs)
> | 		9	Netcom
> | 		8	Sprint
> | 		6	ATT