RS> The main economic question is the significant modem handshaking time.

PE> 15 seconds in a 100 second mail run?

Thats not the way to calculate it. What counts is that you
adding ANOTHER one of those by doing two runs a day instead
of one and apart from that, the TOTAL online time is unchanged.

Its a true incremental cost of doing two mail runs instead of one.
And costs about 15c per day extra, because of the 12c flag fall too.

OTOH that is clearly cheaper than if it was at local call
rates where the dual mail runs costs an extra 25c per day.
Or maybe 21.25c if it does qualify for the flexiplan discount.

PE> That would make it a 15% price hike or thereabouts,

You cant say that when the STD callers charge varys with volume.
That would only be true if my charge per day was $1 with one call.

And the percentage is irrelevant anyway, the only sensible way to look
at it is that two runs per day costs 15c per day more. $55 per year.

PE> as distinct from a local caller who would have a price increase of 100%.

True, that one is valid.
@EOT:

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