Prestel - The Information Providers' View

The Information Providers' View

There were two levels of IP – firstly a "Main IP" who rented pages from Post Office Telecommunications (PO)/British Telecom (BT) directly, and who thus owned a three digit node or "master page" in the Prestel database. This required significant ongoing investment, starting with an annual payment to become an IP, which included editing rights, the rental of 100 frames, and the ability to store 10 response frames, as well as instruction manuals and training. The price of this basic package was £5,500 per annum in 1983, equivalent to around £22,000 as at end 2009. Additional frames were available in batches of 500 for £500 per annum (over £2,000 as at end 2009) while Closed User Groups cost £250 (over £1,000 as at end 2009).

For the smaller firm or institution who did not wish to make such a large annual investment in this new technology it was possible to act as a “Sub-IP”, renting pages from a Main IP rather than from the Post Office/British Telecom. The Main IP had to pay an additional £250 to obtain the privilege but could then rent out individual pages at a market rate. Unlike the main IP, sub-IPs had to pay a per-minute charge for editing online, 8p per minute in 1983 (over 30p as at end 2009). Sub-IPs were restricted to pages under a 4 or more digit node within a Main IP's area, and could only edit existing pages. Sub-IP accounts were unable to create or delete pages or frames themselves.

Editing of pages was possible in one of two ways, either directly by creating or amending pages using special editing keyboards whilst connected online to the main Update Computer, or by creating pages offline and updating them in bulk to the main Update Computer. Bulk update required that pages be created offline by the use of editing terminals which could store pages, or by micro-computers such as that provided by Apple or Acorn. The pages were then transmitted to the UDC online in bulk via a special dialup port and protocol, or sent via magnetic tape to the Update Centre (UDC) where they were uploaded by Network Operations (NOC) staff .

Using the online editor facility, IPs were also able to view information about their pages which was hidden from the ordinary end user, such as the time and date of the last update, whether the frame was in a Closed User Group (CUG), the price to view the frame (if any) and the "frame count" or number of times the frame had been accessed. The frame count was not accumulated over all IRC's but related only to the computer which was being viewed at the time so gaining national access counts was a manual exercise.

IPs and sub-IPs accessed the Edit computer using their normal ID and password, but had a separate password to access the editing facility. Bulk uploads only required the edit password and the IPs account number.