broadband recommendations, Arlington

[bill at horne.net (Bill Horne)]

Although I'd like to have improved connection speeds and a
fixed IP, the only DSL offering I can get here is SDSL - at
$150/month, which is too rich for my blood.

However, even if I could get the ADSL offering, I'd think
twice: Speakeasy's web page warns that it's a "bridged"
connection (kudos for being honest, BTW),  and provides
a link to their "business" class of services. The price is
"in the ballpark" with a cable modem.

To your points:

A. M1 uptime has (knock on wood) been excellent, with
     only two interruptions in the year I've had it
     (I'm in Sharon).

B. Customer support has been OK once I wade past the first
     level of trainees, but I suspect that any provider will make
     you do that.

C. I've never had a problem running my own server: although
     M1 discontinued their support of "vanity" host names,
     there are plenty of dynamic DNS options to choose from.

     If M1 restricts ports or (shudder) puts us behind a
     NAT, I'd have to adapt:

          1. Find a different place to host my r)B?sum?
          2. Offload the mailing lists to Topica.

     Both of which are a pain, but certainly doable.

D. A "fair" price is hard to measure. Are you determined
     to run your own server? Willing to get the functionality
     somewhere else?  I get what I consider a "fair" price
     from M1, but YMMV.

HTH.

Bill


David Kramer wrote:

> On Tue, 4 Jun 2002, srl wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > Thoughts? Anyone have suggestions on DSL providers? I'm looking for
> > a> uptime b> clueful customer support c> friendliness to running
> > small services from my machine d> fair pricing. I hear good things
> > about Speakeasy, but I've also heard that they've gotten worse as
> > they get larger.  I'd also like to get some idea of how long I can
> > expect to wait on a DSL or cable install.
>
> Absolutely extatic about SpeakEasy.  They are the best.  Not the cheapest,
> but very knowledgeable and reliable.
>
> My install took a very long time, but that was verizon's fault (surprise),
> not Speakeasy.  Two static IP's and non-shared bandwidth can't be beat.
>
> I had MediaOne -> RoadRunner -> ATT, and I had lots of outages, and I
> actually talked to a tech support person who did not know what a domain
> name server was.  They felt no shame about my downtime, and couldn't offer
> any solutions.  It's only a matter of time before they eliminate all
> server ports.
>
> [snip]

--
Bill Horne
http://billhorne.homelinux.org
PGP key: http://pgp.dtype.org:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xB1D7BB90