Re: [PLUG] Verizon DSL

pinkee@cavegirl.org · Thu, 21 Mar 2002 01:17:04 -0500

On Mon, Mar 18, 2002 at 12:45:10PM -0800, Adam Schaible wrote:
> I've been using roaring penguin for my Covad DSL
> connection for several months and I agree with Fred,
> it has been rock solid. In fact, it's better than
> Covad's own "dialer" that I use on my Win partition :)
> I do, however, share pinkee's concern about security.
> I asked some people about it at a PLUG meeting the
> other month and after I remarked that I don't have my
> own firewall they said what I need to do is start
> shutting down ports. Is there a HOWTO I should read,
> or can someone at least give me a short list of good
> shell commands to accomplish this? 

Roaring Penguin has a buolt in fire wall, run the configure script again
and set it up. When I had it up, I had no issues at all.

> Some more comments about DSL: One thing I noticed is
> that almost everyone using it is on Verizon these
> days... do they already have a total monopoly in most
> areas? I am extremely happy with Covad and I have
> heard a lot of good things about SpeakEasy and DCAnet
> as well on this list. It's just that Verizon
> advertises more than anyone else combined, and I
> wonder what the availability of other options is and f
> people even know about them anymore.

Verizon advertises more, verizon is cheaper, and the extra's you get
with the other providers are only useful if you know what they are. My
mom couldn't begin to understand the benefits of static IP's, or 24
customer support <she has me>. No matter who sends you the bill, verizon
owns the copper, so set up is faster. I was looking at a clec for home
phone service. Verizon had me up in 2 weeks, the other company was
saying 2 months. They also suggested I start with verizon and do a hot
vut to spead up initial services. I have seen too many failures and
double wrapped hot cuts to want to deal withmulti providers on telephone
servece. Broadband is a different story. I like DCAnet, they are local,
they are friendly, and they get the job done.

pinkee
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