University computer-geek gods finally figured out that you graduated nine months ago and closed your beloved e-mail account? No local providers of Internet service are listed in the Wisconsin Yellow Pages? Despair not, you may yet get wired.
WorldLink, an Internet "front end" from InterCon Systems of Herndon, Virginia provides electronic mail, file transfer (ftp), and news service from the comfort and convenience of your Mac or DOS machine. WorldLink hooks your PC to the Internet via PSINet, a commercial Internet service provider. Relatively easy to use client software on your PC takes care of all communication with the Net, allowing you to avoid both the pain of learning Unix, and the annoyance of tying up your telephone line for hours.
Support for USENET news is mail-based, meaning that postings flow down the pipe to your local PC, where they are read like mail messages. Users who subscribe to many newsgroups (or to very active groups) are likely to be aggravated by the long wait as hundreds of messages trickle down to their PCs at 2,400 bps. File transfer service is also mail-based; requests for specific files are sent out, and the requested files are returned via the next connection. Unfortunately, this method doesn't permit interactive browsing, and can require many connection attempts to obtain the desired files.
At $19 a month for low-speed access (up to 2,400 bps), InterCon's e-mail-only service (WorldLink Lite) could save you a bundle over slogging through megabytes of mail on the WELL. For comparison, Netcom, a San Francisco Bay Area network service provider with free dial-in numbers throughout California, offers unlimited high-speed access for $17.50 a month, including interactive news and file transfer service, electronic mail (including support for mail clients such as Eudora), substantial online storage space, and access to a wide range of Unix applications.
The system has a few noteworthy drawbacks: You don't get to choose your own user name, and a single non-interactive session handles all exchange of data, so mis-addressed messages are not returned until the next connection. Worst of all, connections to PSINet seem inconsistent.
WorldLink does provide a relatively painless path for Internet novices to get on the Net at minimal cost, with little aggravation and no unnecessary hair loss.
InterCon: +1-703-709-9890, fax 703-709-9896, sales@intercon.con.
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