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December 7, 1996
Dear Fellow ISP,
I am writing you this to inform you of a development, and a trend I see, that I find disturbing. I recently
received a Request for a Proposal (RFP) from the Saginaw School District. You may have gotten this too. If so,
just skip to the part where I explain why this disturbs me so.
What this RFP is looking for is a vendor or vendors to provide complete Internet services for Saginaw County. Not
Internet Services for the schools; dial up and commercial services for the entire county. This proposal dictates
how the ISP will conduct business, right down to disk space allocation (i.e. 2 MB for each E-mail account. Really,
I'm not making that up).
What is wrong with this picture? I am paying my tax dollars to have a part of the government develop a system
that will be in direct competition with me. Granted, a government sponsored organization is going to provide a
level of service way below what I do but that does not make it palatable by any means. The Internet consumer
often does not have enough information initially to make a wise choice among ISP's. Most consumers are eventually
going to make a wise choice's regarding ISP's, but in the meantime, an effort such as this takes away our limited
number of customers, using the taxes we paid. Also think about his: Is this ISP going to be promoted to children
in Saginaw schools? They would make a captive audience.
We are running into a similiar situation in our coverage area. Merit owns several POPs which they rent to several
large ISPs. Quite a few potential customers are dialing Merit owned POPs, using a infrastructure developed with
our tax dollars. That is the whole point. The days when government needed to be involved in the Internet are
long gone. All government involvement can do now is to stifle the growth and potential of the Internet, hurting
our businesses in the process.
I would like to get our elected officials involved in this. What I am looking for is concurence on the points
I've made here (or disagreement if that is how you feel) and a little activism on your part. I am busy writing my
state representative as soon as I'm done with this. Of course I would like any input anyone has on this issue.
Sincerely,
Brian and Maria Wells
Klondyke's Online Services
http://www.klondyke.net
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