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Re: [PLUG] DSL: Questions to ask?
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On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, gabriel rosenkoetter wrote:
> With my fairly low-end DSL connection, I almost never see latency.
> When I do, it's often because of the size of the touch point between
> my ISP's upstream provider and the upstream provider of the site
> to which I'm trying to connect. Perhaps the SpeakeasyNYC<->Alter.net<->
> Yipes!<->Swarthmore (the connection I most frequently make) path
> is just wider than your average path and I'm getting lucky, and I
> haven't investigated who owns what caliber OC lines between me and
> various important places, but the fact that my connection speed is
> actually dependent on this backbone infrastructure further up rather
> than on how many of my neighbors are downloading pr0n is kind of
> nice.
FYI-- Speakeasy just opened another POP in DC, and they've announced their
next one is going to be Philly!
BTW, I know I always hawk Speakeasy, but they're just so fscking cool, and
here are two more reasons I like them:
They're very forthright about their business goals. For instance, they've
been right on top of the Covad chapter 11 thing. Three months ago, they
announced that they had a plan to keep "nearly" everyone on line even in the
event of Covad going belly-up. They said that they couldn't reveal the name
of the company they had the contingency plan with, but that it was in place.
Okay maybe they didn't have anything for real, but they were on top of this
months ago. Just yesterday they sent an e-mail saying essentially what
someone else (Mikey?) said about the chapter 11, clarifying it that the parent
company was the only one filing and that the operating companies were still
afloat. They went on to say that they felt this was "exactly what the
industry needs" to get the whole sector on the right track.
The other reason is that they respect and cater to geeks. They do this not
only by supporting the three major OS's of the day (Linux, Mac and Winxx),
they also have an optional newsletter called RTFM, which discusses their
technology plans and services in detail. To illustrate-- the regular
newsletter might say "We're upgrading our mail servers." The RTFM newsletter
will tell you what hardware and software they're running and just how and when
the installation will be accomplished. It's cool that they trust their
judgement enough to put it under public scrutiny-- much like Free/Open Source
Software itself. Overall, I think they just get what it is to be a geek.
Anyway, I've been with them for just over a year without a noticable outage
(although I cannot say definitively as I don't run servers and shut down my
kit during thunderstorms). I'm moving in a few wweeks and they have the same
level of service in my new city (Windsor, CT) and are setting me up with free
dial-up while I wait (which shouldn't be long because I put my phone line
order in with the local telco about a month ago-- sneaky, huh?).
Anyway, DSL rox. OTOH, if cable is your only option I would consider that
pretty compelling.
---
DISCLAIMER - This text was written on the road and may contain errors of fact,
tact, and decency due to the cumulative effects of cabin fever, emotional
displacement, and restaurant food.
______________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group - http://www.phillylinux.org
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General Discussion - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mail/listinfo/plug
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