ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9702280087
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
IT WAS his father's prostate cancer that stirred Roanoke County businessman Doyle Edgerton Jr.'s interest in the Internet.
Edgerton runs a computer consulting business, Kinetic Data Systems Inc., in Southwest Roanoke County. After his father, who lives in Southside Virginia, developed cancer three years ago, Edgerton began researching the disease, via the Internet, a global computer network.
From his computer, Edgerton tapped into the National Cancer Institute's Internet site in Bethesda, Md. He was able to discover treatments for prostate cancer that doctors had not told his father about.
Armed with that knowledge, Edgerton talked his father into going to the Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., for treatments, which brought the cancer under control.
Afterward, Edgerton said he started thinking about the lack of a local Internet access provider in the Roanoke Valley. Then, local access was limited to Virginia Tech's Blacksburg Electronic Village, which has since quit providing access to the general public, and InfiNet, a Norfolk-based Internet service with which The Roanoke Times is affiliated.
The situation has changed in the past couple of years, however. Now there are about a half-dozen local Internet-access providers in the Roanoke Valley that compete with national telecommunications giants such as AT&T, MCI and Bell Atlantic and big on-line service providers such as America Online and CompuServe.
Among those companies is Rev.Net, Edgerton's 15-month-old access service.
Figures are hard to come by, but a poll of the major local-access providers and a directory search of national companies indicate there are more than 5,000 individuals and businesses in the Roanoke and New River valleys with access to the Internet through commercial services. Thousands more are plugged in through public institutions such as Virginia Tech, Radford University, Roanoke College, community colleges and schools.
And those without their own Internet accounts can access the Net at terminals in public libraries in Roanoke County, Salem and the New River Valley.
Roanoke County, for example, has 12 public Internet terminals scattered among four branch libraries. County librarian Spencer Watts said 3,000 people use those terminals each month. Library patrons in Roanoke, however, don't have access yet because city government hasn't provided the money for it.
Edgerton's new interest in the Internet fit well with his desire to diversify his computer consulting business, which sells computer systems, writes programs and operates information systems for business clients.
"I was looking for something to give us a more rounded experience," he said. He saw the Internet service as a chance to acquaint his company with different kinds of computer equipment and programming.
Ten months of research convinced Edgerton and his colleagues that the Internet business was a good idea. He offered the service to the public in December 1995.
Edgerton named the new business Rev.Net, which stands for Roanoke Electronic Village, reflecting a desire to create a computer-linked Roanoke Valley. As of the middle of last month, the business had grown to 550 subscribers, over halfway to a self-imposed limit of 1,000, designed to keep the business manageable.
Rick Taylor, a Rev.Net subscriber from Roanoke, said his chances of getting a busy signal when he signs on are significantly less with Rev.Net than with a big service such as America Online.
"The slow pace of the Web, especially when you've connected through a sluggish Internet service provider such as AOL or CompuServe, can be a tremendous waste of time," Taylor said. He said he never fails to connect with Rev.Net with a 28.8 modem.
The congestion and connection problems that America Online experienced in January and February brought some AOL defectors to Rev.Net, Edgerton said.
The problems of AOL customers encountering busy signals is attributed, in part, to the company's decision to offer unlimited Internet access for a flat $19.95 a month - a figure common with many providers. Edgerton, however, says Rev.Net limits access to 160 hours for $19.95 expressly to avoid the kinds of problems faced by AOL.
Edgerton stressed that 160 hours a month amounts to more than five hours per day. "If someone is using it more than that, they need to get a life," he said. Of his 550 customers, he said, there may be one who uses more than 160 hours a month.
The debate over Internet-access pricing may be academic, however. The Federal Communications Commission is considering requests from local telephone companies, including Bell Atlantic, that they be allowed to charge per-minute fees to Internet-access providers such as Rev.Net in the same way they charge long-distance companies for completing their calls. Such a charge would undoubtedly be passed along by the Internet companies to their customers.
Consumers generally connect to Internet services with a local call, but the phone companies have argued that heavy Internet use has burdened their networks and required them to make costly equipment upgrades. Critics of the proposed fees have argued that per-minute charges will kill the Internet.
So far, the FCC has resisted calls for access fees on Internet companies. The agency, however, is soliciting comments from the public about whether it should change its policies regarding Internet providers and interstate information services. The debate over phone company access fees will be a part of that proceeding. Comments should be sent to the FCC at Room 239, 1919 M Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20554 or via e-mail to ispxc2fcc.gov.
For now, Edgerton says, his limited 160-hour-a-month rate encourages his clients to disconnect when they finish using the Internet. "It allows us to have a lot of happy customers," he said. "We've never had a complaint of having a busy signal."
Last year, Edgerton hired Bernie Cossell, an Internet pioneer, as a consultant. Cossell, who lives on a Giles County farm, was among programmers who wrote the original software for the Internet in 1969. Edgerton considers Cossell's hiring a milestone for his young company.
Like other Internet-access providers, Rev.Net has a home page on the World Wide Web that offers information about the company and provides links to other Internet sites containing information related to such subject areas as government, movies and music, business, computer software and, of course, the Internet itself.
The Web is a part of the Internet that contains drawings and photographs as well as text, A home page acts as a front door to an individual's or organization's Web site.
Rev.Net uses independent contractors and the Packett Group, a Roanoke advertising and public relations firm, to design its Web pages and the pages of clients. Rev.Net employees provide free technical assistance to subscribers.
Edgerton said he's in a "never-ending battle" to stay competitive, but Rev.Net is now making money.
Among the other major local Internet service providers in the Roanoke area are: R&B Internet, a subsidiary of R&B Communications Inc. of Daleville; Citizens InterNET, a service of Citizens Telephone Cooperative of Floyd; and (depending on how you define local) InfiNet, of which the Roanoke Times is an affiliate.
Bob Nay, R&B's marketing director, said the company's Internet business is making money. The company is committed to the service because it's something that a telephone company must offer, Nay said.
Citizens InterNET has roughly 2,000 subscribers, according to Alan Williams of the company. Citizens offers Internet service in nine Southwest Virginia counties, including Roanoke County. The company picked up many subscribers in the Blacksburg area when Virginia Tech's Blacksburg Electronic Village quit providing access last year to 1,700 subscribers not associated with the university.
InfiNet, which has been providing Internet service in the Roanoke Valley for nearly three years, is probably the largest of the local services with roughly 3,000 subscribers. InfiNet was launched by Landmark Communications Inc. of Norfolk, parent of The Roanoke Times. It is now owned by a partnership of three media companies - Landmark; Knight-Ridder Inc. of Miami; and the Gannett Co. of Arlington, publisher of USA Today.
InfiNet's local sales office is in The Roanoke Times building on Campbell Avenue; and roanoke.com, the on-line news product of The Roanoke Times, provides the service with local content.
Bill Warren, formerly the newspaper's managing editor and now a consultant to roanoke.com, said InfiNet also appears to have benefited from America Online's much publicized problems. InfiNet netted 200 new subscribers during January, Warren said.
January is always a good time for subscriber sales, he said, because people get computers for Christmas. But part of this year's gain is being attributed to AOL's problems as well.
InfiNet continuously upgrades its system in Roanoke and just completed changes to avoid the same congestion problems that afflicted AOL, Warren said. The service provides 216 digital signal processors - digital equivalents of modems - in Roanoke and is not experiencing many busy signals, he said.
The access service is administered from Norfolk. But Warren oversees the development of The Roanoke Times on-line content service locally. In April, roanoke.com, the Web newspaper, will add 11 Web sites that together are designed to create a virtual community.
Among the new features will be the Blue Ridge Marquee, an arts and entertainment site, that will be hosted by Anna Wentworth, a Roanoke librarian who provides theater reviews for WVTF public radio. The new on-line community will also include an outdoors site, with Bill Cochran, outdoors writer for The Roanoke Times as host, and other sites featuring: Smith Mountain Lake, games, teens, food, fitness and wellness and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
roanoke.com will concentrate on providing narrowly focused information on sites covering a broad range of interests. The offering of focused information appears to be the direction the Web is headed, Warren said.
In addition to major national or regional companies such as AT&T, MCI, America Online and Bell Atlantic. there are five major local Internet service providers. Here is a list of those local companies and their services:
LOCAL INTERNET ACCESS PROVIDERS
CableNet, a service of CableVision, which supplies cable television in Bedford and Rocky Mount.
(540) 586-5310
$39.95/month for ultra-fast cable modem and dial-up
access: $21.95/month for 75 hours and $27.95/month
for 150 hours.
Citizens InterNET, a service of Citizens Telephone Cooperative of Floyd.
(540) 745-2111
Dial-up access: $10.95/month for 10 hours,
$19.95/month for 30 hours and $24.95 for unlimited
service. 56K and T1 (1.54 megabytes per second) lines and
ultra-high-speed direct broadcast satellite service
is also available. Call for prices
InfiNet, an affiliated service of The Roanoke Times, based in Norfolk.
(800) 811-3140 or (540) 981-3250
Dial up access: $9.95/ for 10 hours and
$19.95/month for unlimited service. Company
is preparing to offer ISDN service to businesses
and provides T1 access to schools and businesses.
Call for prices.
R&B Internet, a service of R&B Communications Inc. of Daleville.
(540) 966-6000
Dial-up access: $9.95/month for 10 hours, $19.95/month
for unlimited use, $150/month for unlimited, dedicated
service. ISDN will be offered soon.
Rev.Net, a subsidiary of Kinetic Data Systems Inc. of Roanoke.
(540) 772-4967
Dial-up access: $7.95/month for 10 hours, $14.35/month for 20 hours, $19.95/month for 160 hours and $133.33/month for unlimited dedicated service. Dial-up ISDN is available for $19.95/month for 60 hours. Other ISDN and T1 services available.
Sources: The companies
LENGTH: Long : 215 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART/Staff. Doyle Edgerton Jr. is president ofby CNBRev.Net. As of the middle of last month, the 15-month-old business
had grown to 550 subscribers, over halfway to a self-imposed limit
of 1,000, designed to keep the business manageable. color.