Re: [PLUG] DSL: Questions to ask?

[Pete Foley <pete@lynchman.net>]

I use Speakeasy also (for about 1.5 years now) and they rule.  I
have never had any problems with them.  Sure, there have been little
outages here and there for about 15 mins (less than 10 that I have
noticed over the last year and a half), but compared to some of the
stories that I have heard about DSL this is nothing.  I actually
just upped my service to 1.5/384.  It is so sweet.  Speakeasy may be
a bit more that some other DSL providers, but they are worth every
penny IMHO.

-Pete

Thus spake Tony Dominello on Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 04:19:04PM -0700:
> 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.
> 
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
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> 

-- 
Pete Foley (pete@lynchman.net)
http://www.lynchman.net
-------------------------------
Unix is sexy! who | grep -i blonde | date; cd ~;unzip; touch;
strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep


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