[Discuss] Local ISP Recommendations?

[me at mattgillen.net (Matthew Gillen)]

On 01/18/2016 01:06 PM, Kent Borg wrote:
> P.S. The extra charge for static IP on their web site is a lot and gets
> a lot worse with speed, makes me toy with the idea of getting two lines
> (if they are willing, and if Verizon has the copper pairs available on
> my street): one line that is fast but dynamic IP and one that is slow
> but static IP. That would be a chance to learn some networking...

Good idea, but good luck with that.  Not with the networking, that is a 
technical problem that can be solved.

The "business class" service you need  to run your mail server from 
Comcast and Verizon so that you could actually run your own mail server 
is effectively a separate company from their residential services.  So 
to get those two lines from either company you're going to have to have 
two accounts, call two different phone numbers for support, and 
inferring a bit, probably run two separate lines to your house (even if 
they were both FIOS).

And most places that have the "residential" offerings don't actually 
even offer the "business class" too.  You might luck out if you live 
close to a commercial district.

If your incoming server requirements are low, it's almost certainly 
cheaper to just have a single "residential" line, and do one of a couple 
things to solve the rest.  DynDNS used to have a MailHop service for 
$40/yr to forward incoming email traffic to whatever port you wanted 
(helps defeat Comcast's port 25 block), although I can't find that 
service anymore.  You could always rent a cheap AWS server for $30/mo to 
forward all kinds of traffic from low static ports like 80 and 25.

Matt