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Sorry, but you started ranting. Consider this post to have big ol' rant
tags wrapped around the whole thing. :)
On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 10:00:04AM -0400, Beldon Dominello wrote:
> with free dial-in until I get my first phone bill-- which is nice because my
> e-mail address doesn't change. If they didn't tell you about that, ask them.
> That's gotta save some hassles.
In fact, they have already set me up with the dialup service. I'm not
using it, though, since I have free dialup from elsewhere. The email
address doesn't matter to me, since I don't use the email adddress they
gave me. It's more of an issue for my wife, who *does* use their email
service (though I've been mentioning the idea of her having her own
domain).
> Also, as I don't have cable TV, Comcast isn't any less expensive for me.
I was paying the $90/month for 1.5Mbit/384Kbit service with a shell
account and 2 static IPs. For less than that, I could get cable TV
along with my TCP/IP connection.
> The loss of support for Linux might or might not be an issue for you. No
> matter what is wrong, if you even mention you're running Linux, they will
> say, "Linux isn't supported" even if the problem has nothing to do with that.
> also, if you're running any kind of services (web server, ftp, etc.) they
> routinely (i.e. about once a day) portscan your IP address looking for
> servers.
Actually, it's OpenBSD for the firewall. ;)
Seriously, though, I've heard about this and would be prepared to deal
with it. I'd either make other arrangements for that sort of thing or
I'd figure out which machines are doing the scanning and firewall them.
(Still wouldn't abuse the upstream bandwith, though; it'd mainly just be
for ssh purposes.)
But what, if you tell them, "I can't ping my gateway", do you have to
run some diagnostic program in Windows?
> Sorry, but as a Linux user who values such things as competitive ISP's who do
> support Linux, that's kind of important to me.
>
> The reason Speakeasy has to have that delay is the phone company. The
> network provider (not the ISP) doesn't even have access to the information
> until the phone company decides to release it. So the PC only updates their
> database once a month-- it's not really the ISP's fault.
Encouraging support for Linux was why I went with Speakeasy in the first
place.
I placed my order July 31st last year. My install was completed Sep.
29th. Now they're telling me it's a month before I can even place the
order. I realize it's not their fault. I realize that Verizon does
everything they can to make competition hard. I dealt with it. I'm
just getting frustrated at the BS ILEC politics here.
You'll notice that I haven't yet decided to go with cable; I'm exploring
the possibility.
> If you're happy, stay. Deal with dial-up for a month. Since you already
> have the modem, they have "self-install" packages which should be a piece of
> cake for someone even modestly technical can handle. You probably already
> have most if not all of the equipment. Are you line-splitting? they almost
> always line-split now (as opposed to last year when I got mine where they had
> dedicated lines, which was a hassle to schedule, I grant).
Yes, they explained all this to me already.
It's exceedingly frustrating that I'm willing to pay a rather
significant amount of money to have a fast connection but can't get it.
I understand the technical and political issues behind the delay. I've
been very happy with Speakeasy's service; there were only a handful of
unplanned outages, and maybe a handful more planned maintenance events.
See, my issue is that we'll be moving again next fall, probably. As it
is, I only completed nine months on my initial one-year term. We're in
the same apartment building, we have the same NID, why can't I just pay
the $75 or whatever for a Covad guy to come out and switch the line? I
already waited through a Verizon strike and nearly two months for the
stinking thing to be provisioned in the first place. It'll be up to a
month before I can even place the order, and then it'll be two to three
weeks minimum to wait for the install. I have to problem installing all
the stuff myself, and I already own the hardware. That's not the issue.
I don't know if I've made any sense here. I'm just tired of all the
waiting and finger-pointing.
--
Bill Jonas * bill@billjonas.com * http://www.billjonas.com/
"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and
this we should do freely and generously." -- Benjamin Franklin
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