The New York Times Archives

IN real estate, the saying goes, the three most important considerations are location, location and location. In the unreal estate of cyberspace, the key considerations are content, content and content.

That is why more than two million people have taken up electronic residence in the Compuserve Information Service, the third stop on our tour of online information services. Compuserve is the oldest of the Big Three information services (the others are Prodigy and America Online) and it has the richest reservoirs of business, professional and consumer information of any of the major consumer services.

That is not to say that Compuserve does not have location, location and location. Compuserve is the most international of the Big Three services, and it can be reached by a local phone call in more than 700 cities.

If I had to choose just one commercial online service, I would choose Compuserve for the depth and breadth of its information base. I have not counted them all, but it is safe to say that there are more than 1,000 different services available to Compuserve users, certainly more than are available on its rivals.

It is not as family-oriented as Prodigy, and it lacks the slick technology of America Online, but Compuserve has by far the best balance of services and content for small business, home office and professional users. At the same time, it does not neglect those who are just looking for fun and games.

Compuserve has its quirks and drawbacks, of course, and an occasional crazy aunt in the attic.

Just as a nice home in a nice neighborhood costs more, an account with Compuserve typically costs more than an account with Prodigy or America Online.

Compuserve's basic rate is $8.95 a month for unlimited use of the standard services. If a user stays within the standard services (including news, sports, weather, travel, reference libraries, stock quotes, games and limited electronic mail) it is probably the best deal in the online neighborhood.

Beyond the basic rate, however, things get complicated. Compuserve charges relatively large premiums, from $4.80 to as much as $22.80 an hour, for use of "extended" services. Naturally, the extended services give Compuserve much of its personality. For example, Compuserve has an impressive array of special-interest forums and the biggest assortment of computer-related data bases, but they are accessible only at extra charge.

On top of that, Compuserve offers a variety of "premium" services that can run up the bill even faster. For example, some premium data bases charge $7.50 each time you enter a search request for an article. To be fair, the "extended" and "premium" services are clearly marked with warning symbols.

Although the extra fee is smaller, typically 15 cents, a bigger headache is Compuserve's crazy attitude toward incoming Internet electronic mail. Each time someone sends you a piece of E-mail from outside the Compuserve system, even if it is unsolicited junk mail, Compuserve tacks 15 cents or more onto your bill.

If you subscribe to even one prolific Internet mailing list (and some can generate a dozen or more incoming messages a day), it makes more economic sense to forget Compuserve and get an Internet account, where mail is free.

Speaking of the Internet, Compuserve has outlined an ambitious strategy for offering its users more access to Internet services and to begin providing, separate from the Compuserve Information Service, direct Internet accounts through its vast international phone network. At the moment, though, Compuserve trails the upstart America Online in terms of Internet services and ease of use.

Another drawback is that because it has been around longer, Compuserve is something of a fixer-upper.

Unlike America Online or Prodigy, which require the subscriber to use special software to gain access, Compuserve can be reached with any standard communications program. However, to get the most out of the service, and to see it at its best, the user has to install special "front end" software.

These front-end programs, which Compuserve ought to give away, but does not, have ungainly names like Wincim or Tapcis or Navcis Pro. They allow much more efficient use of the Compuserve system, including the ability to set up efficient search plans and to process information off-line when the meter is not running.

When used with these add-on programs, Compuserve is almost as easy to use as America Online and Prodigy. But the programs do not always hide Compuserve's aging plumbing and cracks in the wall. A user can be mousing through a modern, graphical, point-and-click command structure only to be suddenly dropped back into "terminal mode" and forced to (ugh, shudder) actually type an obscure command on the keyboard.

Such annoyances do not outweigh the value of Compuserve's information base, however.