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Sonic.NET aren't the only ones. Independent local ISPs are very much alive in most major metropolitan areas, but they're hard to locate. Almost seems like the opening line of The A-Team: "If you need an Internet connection - If no telco will help - and if you can find them - maybe you can hire an ISP". Sonic.NET covers most of the SF/Bay Area, EasyStreet is one for the greater Portland (OR) area.

That page is full of half-truths and poor statistics.

I don't drink, smoke or use drugs. There are numerous reasons not to indulge, and I found them all when I used over 20 years ago. False anti-drug propaganda is not necessary in the light of the real reasons for not using drugs.

However, the arguments for not using drugs do not support the case for making war on drugs, which is an entirely different issue. IMO, the consequences of our drug war far outweigh the harm caused by what would be legal drug use.

A couple of factoids (not sufficient for decision-making): The UK had almost NO drug-related crime when drugs were available from the National Health Service. Since Thatcher joined Reagan's War on Drugs, the incidence of of violent drug-related crime has shot up astronomically. http://users.easystreet.com/ovid/philosophy/drugwa r.html

I heard a lecture by an economist at Rice University (I forget his name), and he claimed that if we stopped our War on Drugs, the price of a hit of crack would drop to about the price of a couple of aspirin. (His argument was that with costs so small, violence and theft would not be worth the risks.)

Now that I've said that, remember that the original question was,"Where would you go?" Drug availability should not be the deciding factor.

At this time, the USA is still a slightly better place to live than almost anyplace in the World, especially eonomically. It is deteriorating, but it is still better. According to the "Pocket World in Figures" (2003 is my latest), only the citizens of Luxembourg have more purchasing power than the average US citizen. Our purchasing power is higher than Japan, Germany, France, England and Canada. I correspond every day with friends who live in Sweden and Norway. They all love it, but it's only a good place to live; not to make money. Things are scarce, money is scarcer. (They have incomes of approximately $3000/mo USD, and this is GOOD income in Sweden! But it buys a lot less than the USA.) This seems to be true of Denmark, also. A friend of mine (Chinese-American with law offices in Houston, Singapore and Rotterdam) says that taxes in the Netherlands take about 75% her income there, prices are high, and services are slow. A friend of mine in Italy said it took her 6 months to get a dial-up internet connection in Rome two years ago, and it costs 4 times what she'd pay in the States. (She met a lot of nice friends in internet cafes, though.)

Although the Pocket World in Figures somehow calculated that Canada has the highest quality of life (the US second), I have relatives in Regina who had to come to the US for heart surgery because they couldn't get it in Canada; they were too old. Even if you are young enough, it may take 3 months or more to get a bypass or heart transplant.

I have friends who live in Japan and teach English (earn about $50,000/yr USD), and one who is a CPA working for an American firm, and they all say that the money goes a lot further in Japan, but most Japanese don't earn proportionally equivalent incomes.

It will change shortly: Those of us who are baby boomers will be retiring shortly. Social Security and Medicare represent about $50 TRILLION dollars of unfunded liabilities. Figure about $250,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in the USA, or about $1,000,000 per household of 4. (These liabilities are reported off-balance-sheet. If the US Government was Enron, Congress would go to jail.) The only way to fund these liabilities will be to raise taxes and create inflation, because it is such a huge amount of the GDP. Since most retirement funds are in the stock market, withdrawals will probably cause the stock market to decline rapidly and deeply. The repercussions will be felt all over the world, and places that might seem a great place to live today will not be so attractive when they can no longer sell their stuff to the USA and the USA is no longer a good place to invest. We

if the price they sell broadband at is $29.95/month, but they will only sell line access to the competing ISP at $39.95/month, the ISP cannot compete.

Don't they already do this? (Verizon DSL prices vs Easystreet DSL prices) Easystreet's Verizon line charge is more expensive than buying DSL straight from Verizon, with one year contract. Are these numbers accurate, or am I missing something here?

In Oregon, you also have the option of EasyStreet which specifically declares it acceptable to share your connection as long as it isn't completely open-ended (in other words, you need to password your access). They're also very linux and open-source friendly and are a great company.

I used them for almost three years, until I got tired of paying $90/mo to them and $80/mo to Qwest for the physical line to get 640k/640k when I could get 3.5mbps/256k through Comcast (yeah, I don't like them either) for only $60/mo.

They're very knowleldgable and don't have a problem with running your own servers for non-business purposes.

I don't like to pimp advertising but they were a really great and unique ISP and if anyone needs DSL service in this area, I'd strongly reccommend them.

Note, that famous little mp3 is not made by Monty Python.

Easystreet techs were always available to help with troubleshooting of the line, and I don't recall ever waiting more than a minute to speak with a tech. Having previously dealt with a nationally known ISP (thanks for nothing, Prodigy!), the responsiveness of Easystreet is refreshing.

About 6 months ago, they did have some issues with a router, but John Beaston (one of their VPs) sent out regular updates as to the status of troubleshooting and expected outages. It was nice to hear not only that they were having problems, but what they were doing to fix it. None of that "Our network is flawless. It must be a problem with your computer. Please reboot and call someone who cares. ThankYouVeryMuchYouAreAValuedCustomer. PleaseWaitForTheNextAvailableAttendant."

Your comments about their TOS are quite right... just look at their Enthusiast package
I haven't seen too many other companies with such liberal terms. Basically you can do what you want as long as you act responsibly. No open relays, no sending spam, or other antisocial behavior. Otherwise, have fun.

"Internet access" means "just route my fscking packets"

Duh! I used to use quest until they screwed me. Now I came to my senses and I use EasyStreet here in Portland, OR. They even have a "geek" package for linux users. I was in Maine doing some training, and I wanted to know my IP address so I could get some stuff off my box here at home. I called EasyStreet and not only did a human answer the phone, but she also answered my question in about two seconds, and she sounded cute too!!! I should have asked her if she used Emacs; it could have been love.

So, with Easystreet, which of their many individual pricing plans or enthusiast pricing plans do you use? And, were you able to choose between the Verizon and Qwest options there, or was that determined by your location? Also, it's not PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet), right I've heard bad thing about PPPoE -- primarily its significant "spin up" time.. As I'm thinking about moving to the Portland area, so this is of quite an interest to me.

Alex Bischoff
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So, with Easystreet, which of their many individual pricing plans or enthusiast pricing plans do you use? And, were you able to choose between the Verizon and Qwest options there, or was that determined by your location? Also, it's not PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet), right I've heard bad thing about PPPoE -- primarily its significant "spin up" time.. As I'm thinking about moving to the Portland area, so this is of quite an interest to me.

Alex Bischoff
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So, with Easystreet, which of their many individual pricing plans or enthusiast pricing plans do you use? And, were you able to choose between the Verizon and Qwest options there, or was that determined by your location? Also, it's not PPPoE (PPP over Ethernet), right I've heard bad thing about PPPoE -- primarily its significant "spin up" time.. As I'm thinking about moving to the Portland area, so this is of quite an interest to me.

Alex Bischoff
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I'm with Easystreet now. With the fall of Teleport to Earthlink and Pacifier and Transport Logic to whoever it was that bought those two, it seems Easystreet is the last of the "high profile" ISP's that Portland had.

We originally went to Easystreet for colo facilities when our prior colo place went under. They were pretty cool about it, we basically called them up within an hour of hearing we needed to evacuate our servers, and they gave us rackspace and IPs by the end of the day. Pretty good rush work. So, when it came time to get DSL service, it made sense to use them, since we already had a rapport with our account rep.

I agree about Hevanet. They're one of the nice comfortable sized local ISPs that we used to have a large number of. It's nice to see there are still some around. I'd say stick with them as long as they can serve you.