[ale] Ideas for backup internet connection?

[Byron A Jeff]

> 
> $7 a month seems awfully limiting.  Orange County Online (oco.net) is the
> best ISP I've ever dealt with.  You can call tech support at 4 PM their time
> and get a human being in about two rings.  I think I'm paying $17 a month
> for unlimited access.  They're based in CA so I assume they're at least
> covering major metros nationwide.

Wandered Inn sloved my problem this morning. www.atlnet.com was perfect:

- $4.95 a month
- 50 hours a month
- Static IP. Amazing!
- Not only Linux friendly, but a Linux shop.
- 1-800 number for offsite POP. $6 an hour but fine for sproadic use.
- Got a person on the phone who set me up instantly
- E-mail and website included.
- Standard PPP/PAP connectivity so it works with everything.

I couldn't beat this with a stick! The absolutely single concern that I had
was that the signup page wasn't on a secured server. But with the customer
service I got over the phone, who cares?

Remember this is a backup Internet connection. It's going to be dormant except
for primary outages and travel. It's insurance. So I didn't need unlimited
connectivity. I just found two occasions this month already when having a
backup dialup connection was useful. The first was when I was trying to get
my father's machine together in New Orleans over the Labor Day weekend. He
has a cable modem, but Linux wouldn't talk to it. Plus a "friend" (note the
quotes) of his had tried to install 98 in the unused partition. Of course
98 was completely unhappy with the 810 MB and wouldn't install
properly. But it did have time to overwrite the bootloader. So I needed to
get Linux booted to fix the problem.

He had been using a free bluelight.com connection, but it would time out 
downloading a boot disk. Yuck. So I connected with my sister's BellSouth
account, downloaded and got things working. Turns out the Cox's DHCP requires
a certain name for the requesting machine and would refuse unless that name
is given. My AT&T (same @Home account and modem) uses MAC locking instead.
So one -I option later on dhcpcd, and we're off and running. I actually was
able to get the information from @Home customer service without giving away
that I was connecting with a Linux box. Also she swore up and down that they
didn't operate from a script. Yeah, Right!

The second episode was yesterday and the AT&T siesta!

So that's why the requirements and I found a winner that totally exceeds all
my expectations so far. Fast, efficient, inexpensive, standard, Linux friendly.
What more can you ask?

BAJ

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