Conference 7.286::digital

    I can't shed any light on your problem, just help to console you that
    this sort of cost control is rife.  Highly efficient (centralised)
    infrastructure costs are being jettisoned in the vain hope that by
    forcing individuals and their BU's to use alternative directly billed
    services that the overall result will be less costly.
    
    For a constant level of use, this strategy will work only if the unit
    costs are cheaper.  But they aren't.  In fact they are more expensive.
    However - they do hit directly on your CC, so the other (unsaid) part
    of the theory is that superfluous usage will be throttled out of the
    system by getting penny-conscious CC managers to sign off on every long
    distance telephone bill. (or e-mail account, or VAX, or disk spindle,
    or post-it or fax-paper or ........)
    

While it does not help voice calls, a cheaper alternative (at least for DEC) 
is for you to use the AltaVista Internet Tunnel.  You get an Internet account 
from your local ISP, and then use the tunnel to access the Digital network.  
I've been using the tunnel for over a year, and it is a good alternative to 
FX lines for data calls.  I would suspect that there is an ISP with a local 
number in Concord.

john

>While it does not help voice calls, a cheaper alternative (at least for DEC) 
>is for you to use the AltaVista Internet Tunnel.  You get an Internet account 
>from your local ISP, and then use the tunnel to access the Digital network.  
>I've been using the tunnel for over a year, and it is a good alternative to 
>FX lines for data calls.  I would suspect that there is an ISP with a local 
>number in Concord.


    	I refuse to get an ISP just to dial into work, unless DEC pays for
    it.  In which case, is it really cheaper for DEC?  I would have to
    believe no, if everyone did this.



    Brian

    
    Anyone know if there is a plan/intention to shut more/all FX numbers?
    
    al     
    

I have a Macintosh at home.  AltaVista Internet Tunnel doesn't run on
Macs.

-Chris

    
    One of the members on our team telecommutes.  She uses a Mac
    with SOFTWINDOWS and WIN95 and the Tunnel successfully.
    
    This is pretty memory intensive, if you send me mail offline, i
    can get some more information if you want to go this route.
    
    Sandra

Why doesn't AV tunnel support the Mac?

...tom

    They say there isn't a market for it.
    
    				-John

    RE: .6
    
    SOFTWINDOWS on the Macintosh is horribly slow except on the most
    powerful PowerPC-based Macintoshes, but lets save those discussions
    for the HUMANE::MACINTOSH conference. :-)
    
    					-John

    � They say there isn't a market for it.

Well, there isn't.  But what we really say is that the engineering
effort vs. the potential revenue, weighed against the tradeoffs of
redirecting members of the already tiny engineering team, has been
pushing this one out.  We're hoping to have something soon.

j.

    Re: .0
    
    Just maybe their isn't a conspiracy here :*} The heard that the Concord 
    and Manchester lines were terminated in MKO. With the closing of MKO
    these lines may have been shutdown on the MKO side. So my guess is the
    possibilities are:
    
    1. Whoever is in charge of these FX lines knows this and is actively
    working to reconnect these FX lines into Nashua. 
    
    2. Whoever is in charge of these lines doesn't know what happened.
    
    3. Somebody is trying to reduce expenses and annoy employees.
    
    
    As an aside, the ISP/AV tunnel method is probably a better/lower cost
    method (What are the charges per minute for the FX line usage?). This
    leads to the burning issue of WHO PAYS for the ISP connection?
    
    If the primary reason for an employee's ISP connection is work
    related, who should pay? The line might be drawn at those on the Home
    Alone program (no office). However, should Digital pay for an
    employee's ISP account for the convenience of working at home even
    though Digital maintains an office, phone and equipment for the
    employee at a facility?  I think there are valid arguments both ways
    (productivity and flexibility versus cost). 
    
    
    Dan,
    User of the Concord FX line.
    
                                                     
    
    

    RE: -1  Good guesses, but it looks like (3) is the answer.
    
    	Here's the notice that showed up when dialin:
    
    ***** CCS NOTICE *******  IMPORTANT  NOTICE ******* CCS NOTICE *****
    
    The Manchester Dial-in numbers, 627-1048, 627-1049, etc. will shut down
    Friday, May 30th.  No replacement numbers are planned, so you must use one
    of the following alternatives:
    
    1- Obtain a Digital1 account and use RAS as described in the CCS web page.
           http://www-ccs.wro.dec.com/NT/RemoteAccess/Default.htm
    2- Subscribe to a local ISP and use Tunneling as described at this web site:
           http://www.imc.das.dec.com/imcdocs/tunindex.htm
    3- Dial long distance into other sites.  Numbers are available from the CCS
           Help Desk at (508) 493-2420 or DTN 223-2420
    
    
    I went with option 2, an increase of $20/mo for me and $10/mo for my
    cost center.  And according to the CCS contact who had to manually 
    reboot the server just about every day the last couple of weeks, this
    was a popular number for people to dial into.
    
    	Moe 

	RE .11

	Every DEC telephone Line in New Hampshire terminates in MKO. 
That's where the PBX is that serves all New Hampshire sites!
	 Currently there is an agreement with Fidelity to allow us to 
maintain that switch until Nynex can move us off to Centrex Service 
out of Manchester. Last I heard that will occur sometime in August.

	I suspect option 3 is the most probable cause of the FX lines 
being shutdown. 

	\Bob Lail
	EX MKO'r

>>    	Here's the notice that showed up when dialin:

dial in where???  

When did this start to appear (today)?

bjm

    I have been "using" the Tunnel software for over 5 months. 
    My impressions: It is absolutely some of the worst software I have ever
    had to use. 
    Why? It is buggy, goes down for no reason, takes your PC with it. I
    spent 3.5 hours yesterday trying to log into MS Exchange using
    Altavista Tunnel. I had to hard reboot my system no less than 8 times. 
    The CCS hot line acknowledges that this is "What happens" with AV
    Tunnel.
    My system is a DECpc 486 66mhz with 24 MB memory and over 4GB of hard
    disk. That is not the problem. AV Tunnel is the problem. My group is
    actively looking at alternatives to Tunnel because it is so poor.
    Do not use AV Tunnel if you want to get work done. 

re: .15

You don't mention what OS you're using, what your IP connection is,
what other software you're using, etc.  You don't mention if you've
explained your problems in the forum where the tunnel folks hang
out; that might help.

Since we're giving impressions and opinions:
    The Tunnel product is rock-solid.  I've used it for over a year
    on Windows95, and I get dropped less often than my direct-to-ZKO
    dialup drops.  I have had bad software bollocks up the network
    and cause trouble that may appear to tunnel-related, but I can
    always track the problem to something other than the tunnel.  I've
    never had it crash my system, which is a 486/66 w/20MB.  I use it
    almost every day into DAS.  I can mount my shares over it, use FTP,
    use TELNET, and http.  My dialup ISP is Ultranet.  People in my
    group in OpenVMS Engineering are moving TO the tunnel because it's
    so reliable.

I hope you get your problems resolved.  Good luck.
\john