RCN vs Mediaone cable modem experiences?

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

>    I got an RCN cable modem installed this week.  I think I'll be
> giving it back.  Their DHCP server appears to use a very short lease
> period and hands out hostnames that look like this: r93aag000892.
> This means that I can't reasonably expect to be able to telnet to
> my machine from on the road and I'll no longer be able to continue
> to host some of the mailing lists that I host from this machine.

Not a good measurement of IP address stability.  I've had the same
IP address for over three months.  I simply set up my own DNS entry
pointing to that address, and I don't bother remembering the serial-number
address.

For what it's worth, the hostname you get is permanent and tied to the
serial number of your cable-modem.  So even if they change your IP,
your inverse DNS will remain constant.

As for the overall quality of RCN service, thus far it's been kinda sucky.
More than the usual set of startup growing pains, because of the sheer
scale of their operation.  They ramped up from 0 to 2700 employees in a
matter of 2 or 3 years, mostly through acquisitions which haven't been
properly digested.  The underlying technology is superior to anything
Media One has deployed, so there's hope that eventually I'll be glad
I'm on RCN.  But for now it's what I'm stuck with.

-rich
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