Beginning in mid- to late March, students, faculty, and staff will be able to sign up for Internet service that will give them improved access from off campus to all of the computing resources available on UConn computer systems.

The service will be provided by RCN through cted.net, an Internet offering for the Connecticut State University System, the state's community and technical colleges, and now, UConn.

Subscribers to uconn.cted.net can receive either unlimited Internet access for $15.95 a month, or 10 hours of access per month for $7.95, with additional time billed at $1.50 per hour.

"An advantage over other Internet providers is that through uconn.cted.net, students who live off the main campus and commuters to regional campuses will be able to get improved access from remote sites to all of UConn's computing resources, including the library and ftp (file transfer protocol) services," says Michael Murphy, a senior sales manager with RCN in Boston.

Local dial-up access - avoiding long distance telephone charges - will be available through uconn.cted.net for all of Connecticut and Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire.

In addition to local dial-up, benefits include faster connection speeds of up to 56 kilobytes per second (56k v90), and a UConn-specific e-mail address (@uconn.cted.net), says Murphy.

UConn will also continue to offer PPP (Point to Point Protocol) accounts through the University Computer Center.

"Some users who live in Storrs may choose to continue with their PPP account through the Computer Center," says Malcolm Toedt, executive director of the Computer Center. The UConn PPP accounts, however, have a maximum modem speed of 33kbps, which may be unattractive to users beyond the Storrs calling area. Through uconn.cted.net, users will receive a service in which RCN will continually invest in state-of-the-art modems to provide access at the highest transfer speeds.

"This is a service that provides the highest levels of network connectivity for our faculty, staff and students while preserving direct access to the full set of UConn resources," says Toedt. "By joining with other institutions of higher education in the state, we can keep costs down and keep investments in new technologies high."

Current PPP account holders were given an extension for the months of January and February, and that extension will continue until uconn.cted.net service begins. Once that occurs, those continuing with a Computer Center-supported PPP will have to renew their accounts, at a cost of $12 per month.

A sign-up period for subscribers to the new service will begin in mid- to late March at all University campuses, including information/sign-up tables for students and the mailing of CD-ROMs to faculty and staff. More details on how to subscribe will be available in March.

As part of the cted.net agreement with the Connecticut Higher Education Consortium, RCN will also provide two free dial-up accounts for each public K-12 school in Connecticut.

RCN Corp. is the seventh largest Internet service provider in the United States and the largest regional Internet service provider in the Northeast. The company is currently providing local and long-distance phone, cable television and Internet services in several markets, from Boston to Washington, D.C.

In February 1998, RCN acquired the largest Internet service providers in the Washington, D.C., and Boston areas, Erols Internet Inc. and Ultranet Communications Inc. The company also acquired JavaNet, a Springfield, Mass.-based Internet service provider, which provides service to Connecticut subscribers and which established cted.net.

Mark J. Roy