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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_lacing

In the notes section you'll find the Qwest Telecommunications Equipment Installation Guidelines (TEIG). Lots and lots of good information here, pay attention to Chapter 5 Cabling: Forming, Running, and Securing. The NASA stuff is interesting, but I notice they've gone to the dark side and started allowing cable ties. No wonder they have so many problems.

http://www.qwest.com/techpub/77350/77350.pdf

As for "oh, but I have to make changes," you plan for changes from the start. If you expect you'll be adding/dropping often, use patch panels (many of them have cable management built in). Run extra and store it in the floor or out of the way on the ladder rack. If you need to re-run cable, take the time to do it correctly. If you use the lacing techniques in the qwest docs you should be able to loosen up the run, remove the offending cable and pull a new one. Temping something in should just be that: getting something up after hours or until the maintenance window. If the equipment so mission critical that it can't be taken down, build in redundancy.

I run a mail server from my home. My ISP, Qwest, explicitly allows you to run servers from a home account:

Service may be used to host a server, personal or commercial, as long as server is used pursuant to the terms and conditions of this Agreement applicable to Service and not for any malicious purposes.

Furthermore, while they may filter port 25, they will open it at your request. Finally, you are right that you need to have reverse DNS configured correctly to avoid being filtered. Qwest will do this for anyone who pays for a static IP, which you need anyway if you are running a home server, and only costs $5 a month. It took me 5 minutes on the phone to get all this setup with them (after spending half a day learning that it was needed).

Finally as far a reliability goes, the various Dynamic DNS services also offer inexpensive SMTP store and forward, so you can list them as a backup mailhost in case your home service is down. I use changeip, but have also heard good things about DynDNS.

Running your own servers from home is a good learning experience and does improve your privacy. I hate to see DIY jobs discouraged on slashdot of all places.

I use Qwest DSL and have used several other ISP's over the years with it you can look at the list yourself if you want. Though that just makes billing weird with half going to the DSL provider and half to the ISP.

Are there any home use providers in the US that would give you anything approaching speeds where even G couldn't keep up?

The two major residential broadband providers in my area:

Comcast and Qwest

Qwest apparently "only" pushes 20mbps downstream with less than 1mbps upstream (that upstream cap is on on all tiers, how odd), whereas Comcast offers 50mbps down and 10mbps up, which could exceed the 54mbps limit of Wireless G. Note that all figures are labelled with asterisks, including 802.11g, that link to a disclaimer saying that all speeds are "theoretical maximums". In a typical usage scenario, you can flood out a Wireless G router's *actual and available* bandwidth with less than 30mbps.

There is a third provider in my area, called Utopia, but they were just in the local paper because it looks like they're about to fold. Apparently, if they sold off all their assets, they would still be over one hundred million dollars in the hole... and they still owe service to nearly a dozen (bond-holding) cities. I walked in the front door about a year ago, and inquired as to how I could get their inexpensive fiber-to-the-premises service, and they brushed me off as if they didn't have time to deal with such a small-potatoes project (interesting point, here: I am the "computer guy" for about a half-dozen households and businesses who treat my word as law when it comes to anything with flashing lights on the front or wires coming out the back; so by blowing me off, they ditched at least 6 new customers, never mind any word-of-mouth advertising they may have gotten from those new clients - several of whom work with or in local and state government - good job, folks!). It's really too bad their in-person customer service is so bad, or they might be able to hit those magical subscriber-base numbers they need so desperately. Until I read that article, I assumed they were doing fine... since they obviously couldn't be bothered lifting a finger to get *my* business...

Side note: the 7gbps wireless connection described in the article is pretty much short-range, line-of-sight only - it would be more likely to be a bluetooth replacement, usable only for local connections, probably limited to devices in the same room with the access point. As others have pointed out, 60Ghz is too short a wavelength to have much penetration at all, and would be blocked by anything more substantial than ambient air at a range of about 10 feet or so. Local devices would probably be the target market here; printers, input devices, storage devices, that sort of thing.

Maybe in your USA but not in mine. I frequently get junk mail advertising 7, 8, even 12mbs connection speeds. Unfortunately DSL isn't available. However Qwest does have fiber in the neighborhood. I just pulled out one of the ads I got and it says 7Mbps for $25 for 12 months. Along with the offer is free Wifi, but that's through ATT and ATT already offers free wifi in some places. Such as Barnes and Noble. Just for the heck of it I entered my address into Qwest's address lookup to make sure it was available here and it was. If I could keep my current ISP and get fiber I would but my ISP doesn't offer access through Qwest.

Yeah. We're still stuck with that.

Unfortunately for most people you're right, for most it's put up with one choice or go without.

Falcon

You can go to http://qwest.com/dsl and click on "Internet without Local Phone" on the side. Unfortunately, it looks more expensive ($40 a month) than what we can get in AT&T/SBC regions.

I'm a dire cheapskate (part-timer in a small town). SBC's "DSL Direct" is perfect. $20 a month (no taxes) for 768/384 DSL. $5.50 Skype for unlimited US/Canada and an incoming number. Plus $100 a year in prepaid cellphone (not totally necessary). That's cheaper, all told, than a dialtone and the cheapest $6 dialup service I can find.

I live in the boonies so I won't see it anytime soon.

This guy must be a noob. Try get the same kind of service any any kind of national conventions in US, then you wouldn't be surprises with how much they charge.

Rates for DNC: http://www.qwest.com/dnc/
http://www.qwest.com/dnc/downloads/Democratic_Convention_Rate_Guide_July_2008_v7_16_final.pdf

This guy must be a noob. Try get the same kind of service any any kind of national conventions in US, then you wouldn't be surprises with how much they charge.

Rates for DNC: http://www.qwest.com/dnc/
http://www.qwest.com/dnc/downloads/Democratic_Convention_Rate_Guide_July_2008_v7_16_final.pdf

You mean this?

The unlimited internet promise appears to be made outside the US more than what I see here. I just don't see those claims made much, if at all in the US. A search on google for unlimted internet for me (mostly because google gives geography related search results) gives results for unlimited internet, but by that they mean an unlimited number of dialup internet minutes via 56k modem. Most of the large US ISPs will not show up in the first couple pages of google search results when one searches for the term "unlimited internet"--mostly dialup companies show up. Here are some of the main internet providers in the US--cable and phone companies:

ATT

Charter Communications

Time Warner

Verizon

Cox Cable

Qwest

And even evil Comcast

Find any claims of unlimited internet bandwidth from any major US ISP? Keep looking...you'll even find dislaimers saying explicitly that speed and bandwidth is not in any way guaranteed. Certainly those disclaimers are not front and center, but many have their disclaimers asterisk'd with notes on the main service description pages, so the disclaimers are not hard to find. The US has fairly clear and well enforced truth in advertising laws. Doesn't the UK?

I don't think anyone has any right to unlimited internet if I make no such claims, guarantees, or promises and especially if I specifically disclaim any such guarantee. The vast majority of US companies wouldn't make such a claim for fear of losing a class action lawsuit. It seems companies can make untrue claims about their products in the UK and not get sued? I certainly cannot in the US. That's a problem with your consumer rights laws, if they even exist.

Alarm systems used to use a separate solid copper connection between the premises and the alarm service. The better systems sent a continuous psuedorandom code sequence, constantly reporting "OK here"; anything that interrupted the connection raised an alarm. US telcos stopped offering solid copper connections because people were ordering those and using them for high-speed digital connections.

There used to be "data under voice" services, which provided a very low bitrate channel in a narrow band below audio. These were used for alarm systems. But data under voice can be incompatible with DSL (which is "data over voice", in a higher band), and has mostly been phased out. Actually, there's no fundamental reason you couldn't have data under voice, analog voice, and DSL on the same line, but all three services have to have the right filters to prevent interference.

Then there was ISDN, but that was botched in the US. In many European countries, ISDN voice is common, and the premises equipment is powered via the ISDN connection. So alarm signals could be sent over the D channel. In the US, ISDN was priced higher than analog voice, and powered from the premises end. So it never went anywhere.

Alarms over analog dialup lines are common, but not really very secure, since they're not in continuous communication with the security monitoring center. But at least they don't require AC power at the premises.

There's an installed base of alarm gear that operates over cellular phone services, but much of that is AMPS, the older FM analog cellular system, which, in the US, sunsets next year.

As for the VoIP issue, here's the Central Station Alarm Association's white paper (.DOC format) on the subject.

qwest is beginning to mess with vdsl in denver and phoenix. unfortunately, it's just a couple of neighborhoods so far. most of the excess bandwidth is going to support their tv service. bandwidth is only being offered up to 5mbps as near as i can tell. however, they'll at least be able to keep up with comcast and provide some token competition.

http://www.qwest.com/residential/products/tv/vdsl. html

First cell company to unlimited minutes for $50 a month wins my cash vote.

DSL is available without telephone service.

From Qwest's online Privacy Policy - http://www.qwest.com/legal/privacy.html#3 -

Does Qwest share personal information collected online with third parties?
Qwest discloses personal information collected online to affiliates and to others, including our business partners and vendors, to provide the products and services you request and to enhance those products and services. We may share personal information collected online with the government or third parties who make a *lawful request* for it. We may also disclose personal information collected online to others to assert and defend our legal rights, and as otherwise authorized or required by law.

Once again it is all in the interpretation... Was this a "lawful request" or just a request? I would take "lawful request" as "we have a warrant" but that is just MY interpretation of it, and IANAL...

Every QWORST DSL installation i have seen since they started using those actiontech modems DO NOT have any sort of firewall or wep/wap encryption turned on !

Is this the 'default installation policy' for qworst to completely leave everyone of their customers wide open to attack? Not to mention how much $$ they spend on wasted bandwidth.


SHAME ON QWORST !@#!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

tm

My company just sent me a memo demanding that everyone remove FireFox from their machines because its less secure than Internet Explorer. Perhaps people should tell them what they think about that.

My company just sent me a memo demanding that everyone remove FireFox from their machines because its less secure than Internet Explorer. Perhaps people should tell them what they think about that.

Linux is already on millions of desktops, just waiting to be taken advantage of.

VDSL with TV (and 1Mbps symmetrical simultanious data) has been available from Qwest in AZ for at least 5 years here.

I've seen inside the cabinet that delivers it to my neighborhood (brother works for Qwest and unlocked it). Lots of fiber in there, but mostly dark due to a poor take rate for the product here. So, I dunno what the whole 'French had/invented it first' thing is about -- if it was "almost a year" ago that claim is BS.

Qwest offers TV-Over-DSL, and they have been doing so for *years*. This is not new AT ALL.

http://www.qwest.com/residential/products/tvservic es/index.html

Who the hell writes these articles? If you click on "TV Services" from Qwest's HOME PAGE, this is what you get. DOES ANYONE BOTHER TO DO THEIR RESEARCH ANYMORE?

You think a small private company is going to be able to compete with the big boys?

Actually, yes.

McLeodUSA started as a group of about six people in a rented office in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and despite going through delisting, bankruptcy, having to sell off its directory business and all sorts of other financial trouble after the dot-com bust, is still a huge thorn in Qwest's side. (McLeodUSA mostly does business in the states where Qwest is the incumbent.)

It's quite heartening to know I could go out tomorrow, file some papers with the Iowa Utilities Board, and become a phone company. (Of course, I'd get fired, but that's beside the point.)

I'm hinting at the Mac specs

DSL Modems: Like a traditional modem, a DSL modem connects your computer to your telephone line so you can connect to the Internet. A DSL modem requires a special signal in order to work. Qwest Choice DSL service provides this signal over your existing telephone line, allowing you to surf the Internet and talk on the phone at the same time. Many modems out on the market are not capable of transmitting data at Qwest Choice DSL speeds; new customers to Qwest Choice DSL service can obtain the Actiontec 1524 modem from Qwest. The Actiontec(R) 1524 has a built in 4 port switch, provides a wireless expansion interface and is pre-configured as a router.

Minimum Requirements: To experience all the benefits of Qwest Choice DSL and Qwest Choice DSL Deluxe service, we recommend your computer meets the following minimum system requirements. If you have multiple networked computers, the PC requirements apply to the computer that will be connected to the Qwest Choice DSL modem.

PC (IBM Compatible): Desktop or laptop/notebook

CPU: Pentium(R) class processor minimum speed of 200Mhz

Operating System: Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows ME

16 MB RAM minimum with 32 MB RAM recommended

30 MB hard disk space (additional space will be needed for ISP requirements)

CD-ROM drive (internal or external)

Macintosh(R): iMac(R), Desktop Power PC(R) or Powerbook(R) (notebook)

CPU: MacOS X

16 MB RAM (desktops); 32 MB RAM (laptop/notebook)

30 MB hard disk space (additional space will be needed for ISP requirements.)

Pre-equipped Ethernet NIC

CD-ROM drive (internal or external)

NOTE: If you own an iMac, a G3 or a G4 Mac with USB ports, you will need to purchase a USB to DIN8 adapter cable in order for Qwest DSLTM to work properly.

Excerpt...Qwest Media Press

As part of this industry-leading service, customers can purchase Qwest Choice DSL Deluxe with MSN Premium without Qwest phone service for $49.99 per month. Customers who want to select an Internet service provider (ISP) other than MSN can purchase Qwest Choice DSL Deluxe without phone service for $33 and then select their ISP of choice (Qwest has more than 450 participating ISPs region-wide).

What we are offering is this:

(from Qwest.com)
No phone line needed

Either 256k/256k for $15/month or
1.5m/896k for $28/month

then add in ISP - choose the barebones Qwest.net and (I don't work with the Qwest.net people, so I'm taking RzUpAnmsCwrds word for this part) pay
$7/month

A modem will cost you $59.99, or $3/month

[anon]

You don't have to chose MSN as your ISP. You can pick any ISP that is partnered with Qwest. Qwest has a listing of them on their website. Call one of those ISP's and they can give you more information and usually place your order for you. If the ISP places your order, you can be sure that Qwest won't "accidentally" sign you up for MSN service.

I think this is what he is talking about: Qwest Choice DSL It looks to me to be DSL on top of your phone line (additional charge for the phone line). Since this plan also requires you to choose an ISP, he is recommending Qwest.net which is another $7 + $3 on top of all the other charges. Knowing what I pay for DSL now, that seems to be a very good deal.

I suspect that this will be a bigger success than you realize.

First, there are a number of factors you missed. Current broadband subscribers are dying to get it: DSL is about $5 more, and cable broadband is about $25 more (that's why Qwest and Comcast are complaining). Companies will order more than one connection. Government will order hundreds or thousands of connections. The article touched briefly on what was planned for Provo, one of the smaller cities: Since each intersection has low-resolution cameras installed for controlling traffic lights, they intended to connect each camera up to the network so that crashes and congestion can be viewed remotely. At each sporting event or traffic jam, the entire city's traffic pattern could then be sent to a central location and be more carefully coordinated. That's a few hundred connections right there for a single city.

Second, Your numbers are off. In one instance, you concluded that 2.8M * 12 = 67M which obviously wrong.

Rather than using the approximate numbers given in the article, I went to the census results for the area For the 4 counties involved in the project (Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Weber), there were 531,977 (not 248,000) households and 40,862 (not 34,500) businesses in 2000. Each of these counties is also experiencing rapid growth internally and due to in-migration.

Using the 2000 information, double your number of households, and increase your businesses by 1/3. That brings the elegible base up to 570,000, or 600,000 by the time it is implemented. You suggested that 33% of the population would be interested, but knowing the area, I'd suggest it is closer to 40-50%. The cost of $28/month is much less than what the Qwest/Comcast monopolies want to charge, even for DSL, so expect a huge price war (which is what the two companies were complaining about -- no more price gouging.) Qwest's current charges for 640k DSL is $32/month, + $5/month for modem, plus $100 install fee, plus ISP fees. Comcast is charging $53/month + modem + install for only slightly faster speeds. The Utopia system's $28/month + install is a great deal, considering you can run whatever you want on it, and you get substantially faster speeds.

Assuming your conservative base of 1/3 adoption and one line per business, that's 200,000 installations, $5,600,000 per month, $67,200,000 per year. Assuming a 2/5 adoption rate gives $80,640,000/year.

But there will be more users than just homes and businesses, and businesses are going to take more than one line each. My company will probably end up with 20 or more. Government facilities are planning on massive use of the system, including joining the system up to all the traffic lights and detection systems.

My current company works on traffic detection. Detection stations need to be connected online, and most are currently attached through CDPD modems or fairly expensive fiber cables anyway. Moving over to this service would give huge bandwidth benefits (converting from 9600-19200 baud CDPD to optical) and big savings (a few hundred each month per CDPD modem or wired connections, moving to $28 plus installation costs.) I've been in meetings where this project was discussed, including seeing the numbers run and seeing the savings to the company.

There are a lot more people interested in this than you might suspect, including a substantial cost savings to thousands of companies and geeks in the area.

frob

Now I can sue the telemarketers, if someone ever gets on the line that is. A few weeks ago I decided to just start f#*$ing with the telemarketers. Sound like I'm interested, and keep them on the line for a while and then just start meowing.

What I've discovered is that most of the time when I pick up the phone and say hello I just hear clicks and then it hangs up on me. I get like 8 calls a day like this and most of the time never get to speak to someone. I finally got sick of it and did a *77 which is supposed to block calls without caller ID info but I'm guessing it only works for the Private (ie blocked) calls and not the Unavailable calls that come from most telemarketers.

I understand that computers do the actual dialing and they call multiple people and the first to answer and trigger the voice recognition software gets to the actual telemarketing drone but even when I answer on the first ring and start saying "Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?...." it still hangs up on me.

Anyone else experiencing this?

It could mean that your installed DSL line could have several different choices of ISP's instead of just the ISP officially supported by the telephone company, which will lead to price competition and eventually monthly pricing more akin to dial-up pricing (e.g., US$20 to US$22 per month unlimited access).

I don't know about SBC's area, but for anyone else stuck in Qwest's area (I feel for you, really) you can already pick from multiple ISPs. Qwest has their ISP list so you can see who's available. I have unlimited 640k/256k access for $19.95 a month from these guys.

That is the problem, people here in south east idaho think they can get around with out having to have repeaters, or signal amplification equipment, and so the people who live where Qwest Communications is too lazy to roll out DSL, or Cable One Television dont want to work with the coax to make it so cable broadband is available. I personally think it is shit, that people can get away with over pricing, like Cable one and their 40.00 bill if you have cable internet. more Subscribers=more revenue-overhead=Lower prices for the end user. I wish they would make it available for everyone!

You have been able to get fiber to your home in Eastern Washington [nwinternet.com] for a while now.

That should be you have been able to get fiber to your home in some rural parts of Eastern Washington for a while now. Places that haven't turned over their telecommunications infrastructure to corporate giants aren't fortunate enough to have their network designed for the public good.

You mean survival of the fattest, don't you?

SPEWS doesn't help anybody by blocking non-spammers. They just piss off people who just want to use the Internet without worrying about being branded a "spammer-supporter." All that blocking non-spammers is going to do is force companies to stop using SPEWS when they need to contact companies blocked by SPEWS.

Besides, how about my current situation. I'm a student on at a college, I have one choice for my Internet connection, and that's through the college network. I can pretty much guarentee that a spammer using the college network would get dropped and get several not-so-friendly visits from Netops, so I don't worry about that. However, not overly surprisingly, my college is not directly on the Internet backbone. It goes through a small ISP called "Qwest" - maybe you've heard of them?

I know my home town has, Qwest interrupted phone service for many hours - twice - two years ago or so. Nobody's quite as happy as a police chief with 911 out of service. Of course, cutting service was quite an accomplishment, since the phone service was (and is) provided by Verizon. But never underestimate Qwest's contractors who were laying fiber, and couldn't be bothered to be careful to not cut Verizon's lines in the same area. Twice.

Er, anyway, seeing as Qwest provides the connection to the rest of the Internet, if a spammer caused SPEWS to block off network blocks that include the spammer, including blocking off access to my college, I'd be out of luck. I don't directly support Qwest - I paid a one-time fee to gain access to the larger network. So now, I can't e-mail SPEWS users or in some cases even send to their networks at all. What would SPEWS supporters tell me to do? Move to another ISP.

I can't. As part of the terms for living in the dorms, I must use the college's network. Besides, the college network has a 44MBit/s pipe, why would I want to go get dialup? So I'm stuck waiting for someone else to kick off a spammer. From the praise I've heard people give to Qwest, I could be waiting a while...

Or if I head home, I use (my father's) Verizon DSL for internet access. If Verizon is slow to kick a spammer, and I get blocked at home, do you really expect my Dad to spend $150 to switch to digital cable and get new e-mail addresses? That's ridiculous. Why should I change ISPs to help you remove one spammer who's spamming through someones Windows box who checked off all the software they could install - including IIS (which includes an SMTP server)?

It's completely impractical to expect me to change ISPs to "send a message" to a ISP hosting a spammer. However, said spammer has no problems getting another ISP or even just another IP address, and continues sending spam.

So now what - SPEWS has potentially cost many individuals a total of a few thousand dollars, without getting rid of the spammer, and without really sending a message to the ISP (since most people are likely to be oblivious to the blocking). Maybe SPEWS managed to get a manager to yell at his network guys to "make the mother-loving server accept mail from our largest client's home account now!!!"

This seems a lot like the "shoot them all and let God sort 'em out" policies of yore...

About a year ago, Qwest sent out an opt-out-or-else notice. It looks like people reacted strongly enough to change their minds. Telephone privacy needs to be a basic right.

It's happening today! Qwest has over 60k video subscribers in Phoenix and Denver. Qwest is supporting 3 video streams over a single settop box via VDSL. Up in Canada (Manitoba), MTS will be commercially rolling out video over VDSL in Winnipeg starting early next year. Our platform also supports video over ADSL, with the tradeoff that only 2 streams are supported rather than VDSL's 3 streams, though the reach is 11kft or more as opposed to VDSL's ~4kft from the remote terminal. Many of the independents have expressed interest in the ADSL platform, with SCRTC [this link doesn't work in Mozilla :(] having a few thousand subs online as of today I believe.

Basically the telcos are extremely motivated to find new revenue streams because their lunch (POTS) is being eaten by wireless providers and cable companies offering telephony. Unfortunately this desire is modulated by Wall St. taking an extremely dim view of CapEx spending with the economy in its present state.

To put it bluntly.. BT are a bunch of cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life,snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless,hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sacks of monkey shit who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery.

No, you could do much worse. Much worse, trust me.

If you have Qwest for DSL you can choose your ISP. I use a great local ISP in MN and have been very happy with the service.

Qwest DSL

or perhaps a nice system from Qwest

Qwest has withdrawn the plans it announced in the December, 2001 bill insert to share private customer account information among its different businesses. This information is referred to by federal statute as Customer Proprietary Network Information or CPNI. Qwest will not sell or disclose CPNI, except as required by law, to people authorized to offer or help customers get Qwest services, to prevent the unlawful use of services, or if the company sells that part of its business. No further action is required on your part. Thank you.

For those who have Qwest, look here.

According to Qwest's FAQ, they were started in the same way.

How long has Qwest been in business?
In 1988, Southern Pacific Telecom was established as a subsidiary of Southern Pacific Railroad to lay telecom cable. This subsidiary was purchased by The Anschutz Company. The company began offering limited long distance services in 1991, changed its name to Qwest Communications in 1995, and incorporated in 1996 when it began construction of the Qwest Macro Capacity Fiber Network. Joe Nacchio was appointed CEO in January 1997 and Qwest made its Initial Public Offering in June 1997.

Is this some kind of sham that the railroad execs pull everytime they gets a subsidy to build out new lines? Can anyone shed more light on the history of this? Or is this just misinformation. Sprint's history page make no mention of Southern Pacific, and dates itself back to a 1899 as a telephone and utilities upstart.

Ok, now wake up.... ;-)

No really, as long as people want to communicate with each other they will have nearly unlimited business.

Also, as long as they have right of way, there can be no REAL competition.

I have a feeling that another monopoly breakup is the only thing that could help at this point....
As for now, I'll just sit back, keeping paying my $170+ monthly qwest bill, and wait for dog to eat dog...then maybe Master (DOJ) will punish....it's inevitable. (sorry, link is PPT)

Welcome to the Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association The Ruby Ranch Internet Cooperative Association ("the Coop") is a member-owned and operated provider of high-speed Internet connectivity to homes in the Ruby Ranch neighborhood in Summit County, Colorado.

• contact information
• information for Ruby Ranch subscribers and potential subscribers

The Coop was founded in 2001 because no one offered DSL or cable modem Internet access in our neighborhood, and because the voice telephone service to the neighborhood is of such poor quality that it is not possible to get modem connections faster than about 26K bits per second. The Coop is a Colorado nonprofit corporation and is federally tax-exempt under 501(c)(12).

The Coop has by now accomplished almost everything that is needed to be able to launch service. The Coop has obtained a DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer) and the subscribers have their DSL modems. The Coop has tested the DSL equipment and has confirmed that it will do what we need. A point-to-point microwave link needed to connect the DSLAM to a frame relay T1 line has been designed, constructed, and placed into service. Cabinets and protective equipment have been installed in a barn where the DSLAM will be located. You can see a system diagram and description. Nearly all of the subscribers have arranged for inside wiring work as well as installation of DSL modems and DSL routers, and several subscribers have installed local area networks permitting two or more computers to share the DSL connection. The DSLAM and associated routers have been configured and a block of IP addresses has been obtained and routed. A monitoring system has been set up to monitor the DSL connections, and a second monitoring system has been set up to monitor the UPS (uninterruptable power supply) and the cabinets. The Coop has acquired spares for some of its equipment, with the goal of reducing down-time in the event of equipment failure.

By far the biggest challenge faced by the Coop, a challenge that dwarfed any of the Coop's technical and financial challenges, was gaining access to subloops from Qwest under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. (The subloops are needed to connect the DSLAM to the subscriber homes. The buried telephone cable in our neighborhood has some three times as many subloops as are actually needed for voice service, and the subloops we wish to rent are among the hundreds of spare subloops which otherwise would generate no revenue for Qwest.) The course of negotiations was such that the Coop found it necessary to file an informal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission and subsequently found it necessary to pursue arbitration before the Colorado Public Service Commission ("CoPUC"). In the arbitration, the CoPUC found that "all of [the Coop's] proposed equipment is compatible with the Qwest network," and that "Qwest is technically able to accommodate [the Coop's] proposal." The CoPUC found that the Coop is entitled to pay "wholesale" rates for the subloops rather than much higher retail rates. Finally, the CoPUC found that because the Coop will be providing only data services (not voice services) and because the Coop will be offering its services to everyone in its service area, the Coop does not need to be a CoPUC-licensed telephone company. (This is very good news, since being a licensed telephone company would impose prohibitive accounting and record-keeping burdens.) After the CoPUC's arbitration decision there were further negotiations with Qwest, and a signed Interconnect Agreement between the Coop and Qwest has now been submitted to the CoPUC for approval.

The chief remaining action items are:

• Burying cable between the barn and the cross-connect box, also called a Feeder Distribution Interface (FDI) or Serving Area Interface (SAI).
• Working with Qwest to get a Field Connection Point (FCP) installed at the cross-connect box. Qwest is obligated to have it ready for service no later than Friday, June 21, 2002, but has agreed to make best efforts to have it installed sooner.
• Working with Qwest to get subloops connected between the FCP and subscriber homes.

Barring unforeseen difficulties, the Coop expects to be able to launch service by June 1, 2002, and perhaps sooner.

This page is http://www.rric.net .

Check this out: Qwest.

Their DSL service is pretty expensive, unless you want MSN. Of course, this is competition at work, right? They only carry two MSN packages, both slow, and both cheap. In fact, it's cheaper to get DSL *and* MSN then it is to get DSL by itself, without an ISP. I feel fucking robbed.

Qwest Communications, before selling dial-up and DSL customers to MSN, once had a transparent web proxy set up in Des Moines, Iowa. All outgoing HTTP traffic to port 80 was routed through the proxy.

The worst part was that when the proxy went down, packets continued to be routed to it, but tier 1 tech support personnel (located in another state--probably Minnesota) had no idea that the proxy even existed. The only way to work around it was to use a web proxy somewhere on the Internet that did not operate on port 80!

Qwest finally removed the transparent proxy shortly before switching customers to MSN. I eventually switched to Mediacom cable modem at home and McLeodUSA DSL at work.

• Brand value. mpeg is much better known than the alternatives. This can be a powerful asset. I switched my long-distance from Qwest to PowerNet Global. There is no difference in quality because PNG uses Qwest's infrastructure, but I pay less than half as much as I did, but I realize a lot more people go with Qwest than PNG. In effect, the extra fees go to paying Qwest's marketing, which gives them more market share than the extra price costs them.
  
• Useful features in MP4. I have no idea what features MP4 has over VP3/4/5 that are not visible by viewing the demos on the web, but the article suggests there may be some.
  
• Patent muscle. This surprised me as On2 has been around for some time and once had a market cap of about $1 billion (I miss those days!). They could have sued them when they had the prospect of getting real money in a judgment, where now there is no prospect of getting money from them or the open-source alternatives. I suspect this implies they don't have much of a case.
  
• Negotiating strategy. I have been involved in quite a few enterprise-level business negotiations. Both sides often take extreme initial positions to give them room to negotiate. The belief is that if you begin with your best offer, you'll have to settle on something unacceptable. My experience suggests this is a rational negotiating strategy. The mpeg team is going to face tough negotiating with the major media companies and may feel they need some things they can give away. In this case, they will expect to end up reducing their fees but still be better off than if they had started with a more reasonable offer.
  

As a consumer, the corps can rest assured that I do indeed want to be "hurt" by a law that says I don't have to go to all the trouble of sending in opt-out mail to companies that think the details of my personal life are their property to do with as they please. Fsck those fscking fsckers.

Recently, my phone company sent out a mailer describing how to opt out of their planned data sharing scheme. The long and short was that I could dial an 800 number, but that information was so buried in fine-print legalese that I really doubt that many people who otherwise would have opted out actually did. Shenanigans like that are precisely what Vermont is addressing with this law. Let's all think a good thought for Vermont's AG staff on this one.