Modern Pentium systems with conventional graphical browsers use telecommunications very wastefully - mainly because they were developed for use with Western land line telecommunications in countries where all local telephone calls were free.

In the UK local telephone calls have never been free and for many years they remained very expensive. As a result, technologies were developed by British companies to make very effective use of expensive, intermittent telecommunications. These technologies are known as Off-Line Reading.

Off-line Reading works a cyclical manner. Completing the cycle brings the user back to the beginning again.

The user posts new messages or replies to messages which have already been posted.

All these messages and replies are put into a script file which contains the batch of instructions to be executed by the Off-Line Reader. This all happens off-line. Telephone or connect time has not been used and the user can work without having a phone line available.

At a time convenient to the user, he instructs the Off-Line Reader to dial up to his Internet Service Provider. If the unit has a permanent connection to the telephone network the Off-Line Reader's Scheduler can automatically perform this action at a predetermined time, or when a predetermined number of commands have been accumulated.

On top of any of the previous instructions given, the Off-Line Reader will automatically download any new conference messages that may have appeared since the user last logged on. The Off-Line Reader will also execute any regular, scheduled instructions that the user might have asked it to perform.

The Off-Line Reader handles the communications automatically and much faster than any human being could do if he/she went on-line manually to perform the same task. That speed reflects itself in reduced telephone and service connection charges. It also means that using the Off-Line Reader Scheduler it is possible for the user to make his connections at times when the Internet is not overloaded with traffic.

When the Off-Line Reader has finished its work on the remote system, it disconnects the telephone line and:-

When the connection is finished the Off-Line Reader imports all new conference messages ready for the user to read - sorting them into their correct threads and obeying any Mail Rules which may have been set - and puts downloaded files in the specified directory. The messages in stage are now ready to read.

The sequence has gone full circle. There are other steps available to refine this process and perform more sophisticated actions but these are not usually required for implementation in education and training.

From the above it should be clear that a user does not need to have a permanent connection to the Internet to enable him/her to be able to enjoy most of the benefits which can flow from it. All that is required is a short connection every day. This could be achieved by a Travelling Modem Man , the TMM