broadband access

[Sheldon Dubrowin]

I have RCN Cablemodem service, and I was very clear to them, that when I
switched, I wanted to run a web server, and I wanted to access my machines
remotely using ssh.  They said they had no problems when I signed up (the
sales guy, I still have his card), and I have had no complaints from them.
You can see my web server here: http://www.shelnet.org.  I have a rather
large photo album, mostly pictures from work events/partys, but I have not
heard anything from RCN in complaints.  I purchased a service that gives me a
static hostname that gets updated from a scritp after my dhcp client runs,
and it all works.  Oh, I do have a LAN to.  An outdated drawing is available
on my page.

	Shel

On Tue, Sep 19, 2000 at 09:25:36AM -0400, jc at trillian.mit.edu wrote:
> --------
> 
> |  This is the first time I've heard of this. I've had a lan behind a gateway
> |  for atleast three months now, nothing's happened to me.
> |  
> |  I don't have a VPN, so, it doesn't really affect me. You should take that
> |  up with RCN yourself :)
> |  
> |  Anyways. You can choose which stuff you want from RCN. You can get just
> |  the cable modem, just the cable tv, just the phone, or cable modem + phone
> |  (which is what I have), etc, etc.
> 
> One of the better (and funnier) stories  about  "tie-in"  sales  from
> cable companies can be read at:
>    http://www.geocities.com/flutocracy/cablemodem.htm
> 
> This is the story of a woman who ordered cable modem service  without
> getting  the  cable  TV service, and found herself the defendent in a
> criminal fraud case as a result.
> 
> There have been numerous suggestions that this was a wakeup  call  to
> the  cable  industry,  who  have  widely  responded  by making the TV
> service a mandatory part of getting a cable modem. When I looked into
> RCN  a  few  months  ago,  they made it clear that to get cable modem
> service, we would have to also  switch  our  cable  TV  service  from
> Mediaone  to RCN.  This was stated clearly on one of their web pages,
> in fact.  Maybe they've changed this policy since then.
> 
> |  Hope this helps, I like RCN.
> 
> It's useful to hear both good and bad stories.  Keep 'em coming ...
> 
> We're seriously considering another try at a real Internet connection
> and  we'd  like  to  learn  what  we  can  from people other than the
> companies themselves.  In particular, I'd be  interested  in  getting
> lots  of info from people who want home "professional" service (i.e.,
> not just web browsing) for systems other than Windows.
> 
> One of the very real problems with Mediaone's "no servers" policy was
> that  they objected to my running telnetd and sshd.  Several people I
> talked to made it clear that their service was only for running a web
> browser,  and  any other use was at best a violation of their service
> contract.  I'd like my home machine to be accessible from the Net, so
> that  I  can occasionally grab programs and copy them to a machine at
> work.  This is clearly outside Mediaone's model of what the  Internet
> is for, and with only a dial-out connection, it isn't possible.  It's
> also impossible if you can't (legally) run a server like sshd.
> 
> The basis of all this is the fact that the cable  companies  tend  to
> see  the Internet as a new form of (low quality) TV.  It's just a new
> form of entertainment.  Their management tends not to be aware of any
> other  use, or if they hear about it, they don't approve.  This isn't
> surprising, of course.  It'll probably be a decade or more until they
> change this attitude (unless the gummint decides to step in and force
> them to sell real Internet connections), so  the  rest  of  the  comm
> industry has a while to try to get the market away from them.
> 
> -
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  ,-~~-.___.    ._.                 
 / |  '     \   | |"""""""""|      	Sheldon M. Dubrowin
(  )         0  | |         |     
 \_/-, ,----'   | |         |          	
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    /  \-'~;      |""""""""|		dubrowin at yahoo.com
   /  __/~| ._-""||        |         	www.shelnet.org
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