Walter > We are a mid-size company and use EDI through Easylink (VAN). We > have 75 trading partners of which some of them are EDI brokers and > some of them themselves use other VANs and we pay about $1k per > month for our low-volume communications costs (~3600kc). We [still] > use a dial-up modem while connecting to Easylink.
We have a few clients on Easylink, and they all use the Internet to connect. Easylink supplies 'AccessPlus' which can be easily setup to use your existing high-speed connection. If you think that you are paying too much, then shop around. There are many VANs around, and you may be able to switch or renegotiate a lower rate. > We want to get into the 21st century and get away from using the > modem so we are looking at other options (internet/web-based, ftp, > http, AS1, AS2, etc). Replacing the modem should be easy. Replacing the VAN may be a bit harder... > Ideally we'd like to try and eliminate the VAN communication costs > from the picture. What we've done so far is look at other VANs that > allow us to get off the modem and go through an internet protocol > (via web browser) for communicating. > > My question is how do I go about researching other alternatives such > as using AS2? DO I need to poll all of my trading partners to see > if they can handle AS2? If some can handle AS2 and some can't then > what are my options? How can we [slowly] get off of teh EDI VAN? If you are the supplier, you will probably have to follow your customer. There _is_ a trend to AS2, but it is moving slowly. WalMart converted, SearsCanada is doing it now... There are many others. It _is_ more complicated to maintain a direct AS2 or ftp connection, but you do save the VAN charges. If you are the customer, then you may have more leverage. AS2 is still pretty new and not many companies maintain ftp servers for EDI. In some instances, Bay/Zellers (in Canada) did AS2 with their high volume partners. You should be able to have multiple communications methods at the same time. One of our clients does AS2 (WalMart), some proprietary protocol (Afaria), Easylink AND Web Page file transfers... One of their TPs is pushing AS3. Earl Wertheimer [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.spe-edi.com ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
