Comcast setup & cable modem fees - decision

[richb at pioneer.ci.net (Rich Braun)]

> On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 20:45 -0500, Gordon Marx wrote:
>> dyndns.org. The only time I've ever had a problem is when I have to
>> reset the router and end up with a new IP address and forget to update
>> it with them.

Cole Tuininga <colet at code-energy.com>
> If you ran the updater client on a system behind the router
> (http://www.dyndns.com/support/clients/) this wouldn't happen.

Ditto on all the above.  Having run my own ISP and then worked for another
later on, I got somewhat spoiled about having "static" IP addresses in the
early years.

But nowadays I consider it a simple waste of money to buy my own personal
static IP address.  If I had a "real" website that I was counting on to earn
money, I'd host it somewhere.  But given that my only purpose in serving up
html is to (a) maintain an aging list of New England ISPs, and to (b) share
files with friends, it doesn't matter to me whether Comcast "shuts me off". 
I'll just move the "server" to some high-numbered port and change it once in a
while if necessary, because it only needs to work for a few days after I sent
out an email with a link to it.

Comcast and Verizon don't really care whether you're running a "server".  They
just care whether you're running a commercial enterprise on a consumer-priced
service.  What I've found is that Comcast *never* changes my IP address unless
it's doing a major network renumbering, which happens only once every few
months to every few years.   Any they never take my service down except when a
squirrel eats through the cable.  ;-)

Dyndns, Easydns, Mailhop, ddclient--those are the kind of services that work
quite well with a dynamic IP.

-rich