MediaOne dns problems

[ddm at pizzashack.org (Derek Martin)]

On Tue, Apr 10, 2001 at 06:25:13AM +0000, Chris Janicki wrote:
> > The point is, they are creating an /artificial/ demand for premium
> > services by being jackasses about the basic services.  Which they can
> > afford to do because they are a monopoly.  But they're not making any
> > friends in the bargain, and if they ever face real competition ... well,
> > I know where my money will be spent.
> 
> 
> I don't follow your logic... "basic" service is simply plugging in and 
> surfing.  MediaOne does a kick-ass job at that, IMHO.  Running your own 
> services is NOT basic.  That's a "premium" service.

You must work for an ISP, or own one.  Either that, or someone has you
snowed...

It costs MediaOne/AT&T/whoever ZERO to let me run a personal website
on my machine.  The bandwidth generated by my personal web page, like
most typical personal web pages, is miniscule.  I can saturate my
bandwidth much easier by playing on-line games (and have).  Which do
you think is more common?


> In fact the cable company is actually being nice by not canceling your 
> service for breach of contract. 

Another way to look at this is that the cable company has a
customer-unfriendly service agreement.  My main interest is running my
own mail server, and firewalling off my stuff from the other 2000
people on my segment.  It makes me rather uneasy that anyone can get
my POP password.  And frankly, I think I can do a much better job at
keeping my systems and data secure than my provider can.  And for any
user who is willing to take some time and learn about securing their
system, this is typically true.  Security at ISPs (but obviously not
all ISPs) is notoriously terrible.  

It costs MediaOne practically nothing to provide this service.  They
already have most of the equipment they need to provide Internet service.
For the most part, it's the same equipment as what provides your cable
TV.  It comes into your home on the same wire.  Leaves that way too.

And yes, they needed to upgrade their equipment to provide this
service, but they would have done it anyway, so they could sell you
digital cable TV.

If they're not making any money, it's probably bad management, not
because it can't be profitable.  And, more importantly, if they're not
making any money, they won't be in business much longer.


> In fact, ISPs are folding due to the low prices versus
> deployment/service cost.  (e.g. NorthPoint.)

It can't be all THAT much of a money pit, or else why would AT&T have
bought up a large percentage of their assets?  The point here is that
yes, it's cheaper for monopoly communications providers to provide
services, since they already have the infrastructure to support these
services.  For new providers to break into the market, they need to
make heavy investments in terms of equipment, infrastructure, and
human resources and training.  And to top it all off, they usually
have to rent the transmission media from the telcos!  They can't
compete with the telcos, cuz they're not even in the same country,
never mind same playing field.


> Besides all that, you get what you pay for...  If you want better options 
> or service guarantees, they ARE available.

...at prices which are way out of whack with what it costs to provide
them.

As other posts in this thread point out, the hardest part of this is
providing a static IP address.  This is somewhat of a problem, but it
can be managed.  It's certainly true that DHCP makes this much easier,
but with careful planning (or a crystal ball), it can be done without
DHCP.  How well you plan will affect how much it costs and how many
routers you'll need...


On a related note, you CAN run your own domain, even on a system that
has DHCP.  There are several places out there that provide dynamic
DNS, and if you have a friend that manages a DNS server on the
internet, it's fairly easy for them to set up DNS for you too...
Another alternative is to pair up with another person who also has at
least semi-permanent IP addresses but lives on a different segment,
and be eachother's DNS slaves.  If one of your IP addresses change,
the other person's probably won't, and then you just have to change
the IP address on the secondary while you change your domain
registration record (actually your DNS server's host record) with your
registrar to point to the new IP address.  (Note that this is much
easier with some registrars than with others).

I'm leaving out some of the smaller details, but that's the gist of
it.  So it can be done.  It's just a little bit more work.  But
running your own domain takes a good bit of work anyway...


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Derek Martin          |   Unix/Linux geek
ddm at pizzashack.org    |   GnuPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D
Retrieve my public key at http://pgp.mit.edu

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