[ale] Better ISP?

[Derek Atkins]

Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> writes:

> Having been a raving fan on Speakeasy for years, their latest corporate owner
> is doing the deed I won't tolerate - dumping their fantastic, US based support
> for an offshore unit.
>
> So I recently jumped ship. Comcast business class is not available everywhere
> (yet) but it's not much more than residential services and you get basically a
> fat pipe and no restrictions other than don't be a spammer. They will nickle
> and dime you to death on IP addresses ($5/mo for a single?!?!?!). I've had one

$5?  When I was researching Comcast Business Class it was $14.99/mo for
1 static IP, and $19.99/mo for 5.  (I'm planning to get CBC when I move
to the burbs later this year).

> issue that required support and they were remarkably pleasant to deal with and
> it was resolved very quickly. I even told them I was running Linux. They said
> they couldn't tell me how to do it but they could tell me what the setting
> should be (incorrect DNS servers were written down by me). So I told them and
> they sounded like they were taking notes.
>
> The installers were good at running the wire (you get a new wire so they have
> no wire issues to support!) once they understood they were allowed to pull
> through my installed buried conduit to my inside demark point. But they were
> not good at getting things running with a static IP address. They were trying
> to use a permanent dynamic address setup which wasn't working. Eventually they
> listened and it connected immediately. Rig comes with a 4 port router. Vonage
> works fine plugged in directly.

Do they run new wires outside or inside or both?  I suspect that where
I'll want the device inside the house is on the complete opposite side
from where the wires enter the house.  Luckily it's an unfinished
basement, so shouldn't be too hard to run the wire across it.  :)

> Installers were very interested when they saw my linux laptop I brought down
> for testing. So I burned a live CD for them to take with them :-)

I'll have to think about this.

Thanks for the report, tho.  Glad to know that my plan is viable.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available