[no subject]

[Unknown]

1) disconnecting after inactivity timeout for anyone, authorized or 
   not.  The reason is that presumably these are connections that have 
   been left on by accident. 

2) disconnecting after some time period for anyone not authorized.  This
   could be a real pain for some users, but presumably they could get an
   account.

3) provide private lines for a monthly price.  This allows someone to
   connect and have no danger of being disconnected. 

I should note that Richard Moore argues against any inactivity disconnect 
because he might be in the middle of something, get interrupted and take
hours to get back.  I empathize with this, but I wonder if this is a case
that should be handled by  a private dial or direct connect.  I am not
sure - any comments?

I am not in favor of solutions that require charging, primarily because
there is a lot of overhead in useage charges.  How hard this would be to
do will depend in large part on what useage tracking facilities are
available in the NASs (SCP replacement) that get deployed in the net.


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The above deal with limiting use, or charging for use so that more lines
can be made available.  Another thread in the disucssions has been to
increase the number of lines to handle the load.  Mike Alexander
suggests that if there are enough lines to handle the calls, then people
are less likely to hold lines when they come in because they have
confidence that there will be a line available later when they want it
again.  In this view, the only real solution is to have enough lines so
that users do not have to hold lines.

Mark Strandskov also points out that once we are able to require
authorization to get off Michnet (not possible now for SLFP or SLIP), a
number of users may go away, reducing the demand for lines.


I tend to agree with Mike, but I think it might be possible to encourage 
good behavior by having an inactivity disconnect (perhaps looking for 
obvious keep alives as well), limiting unauthorized users to some time 
(only after PPP with authorization is available for Macs and PCs), and
providing "private dial" for users who want to dial in and stay
connected.  In addition we might want to track authorized users who stay
connected for longer than some period (maybe 8 hours) in a regular way
to encourage them to get "private dial" service.
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