Slashdot Mirror

Since when is twice as much "only a few bucks more"? Hint: AOL doesn't count as one of "the local dialup providers".

The main local dialup provider in Cincinnati is Fuse, run by Cincinnati Bell, who also provide broadband service (sure, laugh at the name, but I've been happy with my 6+ years of very good service).

Last I checked, Fuse dial-up costs about $17/month, or $12/month when combined in certain ways with other phone services. So the parent poster has a point - $30/month is not exactly "only a few bucks more."

Regarding telling folks to piss off:

Agreed completely! In fact, it's even worse than how you've put it: In many areas, people don't even have to spend $1500 for hosting rights/static IP: This plan from Cincy Bell, just to use the local example, gives you 768/384k (the "standard" speed offered by CBT), and static IP, no server restictions, for $110/month. No, it's not as fast as a T1... but that's compared to about $40/month for the residential version of the same-speed service. Is it more? Yes. But is it still a good deal, if you want to host servers out of your house? Absolutely. I agree completely that these folks that whine about their *residential* service not providing *business*--class service: I vote we shoot them.

I can't speak for Ameritech's services, since I just moved out of Ameritech's LATA and back into Cincinnati Bell's... however: Cincy Bell has their ADSL service that they call ZoomTown. Overall, it's kind of a PITA: It's $40/month, 768k/384k, dynamic IP, double NAT (IIRC), and, most annoyingly, you have to authenticate through this nasty web interface (don't get me started). This is the strictly residential program. They have other services that will allow you to bypass their auth portal, get static IP, get the TOS that allows you to run servers, have reverse DNS, multiple IPs, higher speeds, etc etc etc. At a price. The service that I'm going to sign up for, once I find a place to live, is around $300/month for no portal, 1 mbit/768k, static IP, reverse DNS, and, since it's a Business DSL hookup, the TOS allows me to run whatever servers I want (unless I provide spam or illegal things or the standard CYA stuff for the ISP). Since I work for the company that owns CintiBell, I think I might get it even cheaper than that. And I think they have a slightly slower version of that (768k/384k) for less bucks a month.

More than residential? Yes. But it's still a damned good price for that kind of service. I pay $40 for my cable modem today (one of the roadrunner service areas, which I'll be moving out of), and that IP is mostly static, but, in theory, my TOS prohibits me from running servers (so they could turn it off, or otherwise screw with me), and the IP does change some times, which is a hassle. Naturally, there's no reverse DNS, either.

So, the long and the short of it, is that there are areas out there that have the kind of service you're looking for, but it is not residential-class service. It's businnes-class, and you're going to have to pay for it. So stop whining.

I can't speak for Ameritech's services, since I just moved out of Ameritech's LATA and back into Cincinnati Bell's... however: Cincy Bell has their ADSL service that they call ZoomTown. Overall, it's kind of a PITA: It's $40/month, 768k/384k, dynamic IP, double NAT (IIRC), and, most annoyingly, you have to authenticate through this nasty web interface (don't get me started). This is the strictly residential program. They have other services that will allow you to bypass their auth portal, get static IP, get the TOS that allows you to run servers, have reverse DNS, multiple IPs, higher speeds, etc etc etc. At a price. The service that I'm going to sign up for, once I find a place to live, is around $300/month for no portal, 1 mbit/768k, static IP, reverse DNS, and, since it's a Business DSL hookup, the TOS allows me to run whatever servers I want (unless I provide spam or illegal things or the standard CYA stuff for the ISP). Since I work for the company that owns CintiBell, I think I might get it even cheaper than that. And I think they have a slightly slower version of that (768k/384k) for less bucks a month.

More than residential? Yes. But it's still a damned good price for that kind of service. I pay $40 for my cable modem today (one of the roadrunner service areas, which I'll be moving out of), and that IP is mostly static, but, in theory, my TOS prohibits me from running servers (so they could turn it off, or otherwise screw with me), and the IP does change some times, which is a hassle. Naturally, there's no reverse DNS, either.

So, the long and the short of it, is that there are areas out there that have the kind of service you're looking for, but it is not residential-class service. It's businnes-class, and you're going to have to pay for it. So stop whining.

I can't speak for Ameritech's services, since I just moved out of Ameritech's LATA and back into Cincinnati Bell's... however: Cincy Bell has their ADSL service that they call ZoomTown. Overall, it's kind of a PITA: It's $40/month, 768k/384k, dynamic IP, double NAT (IIRC), and, most annoyingly, you have to authenticate through this nasty web interface (don't get me started). This is the strictly residential program. They have other services that will allow you to bypass their auth portal, get static IP, get the TOS that allows you to run servers, have reverse DNS, multiple IPs, higher speeds, etc etc etc. At a price. The service that I'm going to sign up for, once I find a place to live, is around $300/month for no portal, 1 mbit/768k, static IP, reverse DNS, and, since it's a Business DSL hookup, the TOS allows me to run whatever servers I want (unless I provide spam or illegal things or the standard CYA stuff for the ISP). Since I work for the company that owns CintiBell, I think I might get it even cheaper than that. And I think they have a slightly slower version of that (768k/384k) for less bucks a month.

More than residential? Yes. But it's still a damned good price for that kind of service. I pay $40 for my cable modem today (one of the roadrunner service areas, which I'll be moving out of), and that IP is mostly static, but, in theory, my TOS prohibits me from running servers (so they could turn it off, or otherwise screw with me), and the IP does change some times, which is a hassle. Naturally, there's no reverse DNS, either.

So, the long and the short of it, is that there are areas out there that have the kind of service you're looking for, but it is not residential-class service. It's businnes-class, and you're going to have to pay for it. So stop whining.

I go to the glorious [insert sarcasm here] University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. This really hits home, not because my family uses @Home or anything like that.. They're smart, they use the sweet ADSL service back home, provided by Zoomtown through our local telco. This hits home because my school uses it for student Internet access in the dorms!

We're unfortunate enough to have been raped into a contract by our local high dollar cable company, Insight Communications.
Yeah, sounds good, right? Yeah, until you notice that their cable modem service is provided by freakin @Home!

Now what the hell am I going to do for net access? The cost is already included in our Housing, so now what? Do I get a refund? Hell no, this is UK we're talking about!
Am I going to get some different service, in the event that our service is terminated (more like when it is)? Our service, if you could classify it as a service, and not an overpriced unreliable annoyance, is already slow as hell, and hit or miss at best. Just about every night I come back from the Lab, my cable modem is retraining.
At least they had the intelligence to get some halfway decent equipment in our rooms, namely the Cisco uBR w/ non-functioning VoIP. :)

Anyway, I'm through ranting. I just hope my SSH connection doesn't drop again when remotely editing server config files!

Soon to be access-less in Lexington. :)

I had the same situation. I was an AOL user since 93, on Windows 3.1. I tried Linux (Slackware) in '95, in the middle of installing Win95 (I had repartitioned anyway). I went back to using AOL until I got a job where we used dial-in access, and finally got our own T1, 1997. In January 1999 I got ADSL from the phone company. I've never looked back.

The discussions I have about AOL with users I support all seem to be about what AOL actually does. They don't have any proprietary content worth speaking of--all of the good content is actually a website which non-AOL users can get to as well. AOL doesn't want their users to be aware of this, of course.

The only argument I have seen for using AOL is parental control. In one case, someone pays for ADSL, but also pays for BYOA AOL so that his kids can access only the clean stuff. Now that the ADSL provider has this service, his situation may change.

However, I have converted two other users (families) from AOL to standard ISP broadband (using Win/IE), and have introduced two users to the Internet with a standard ISP. All are very happy.

"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"

Here in Cincinnati that's how our setup has been from the beginning. (PPP) Cincinnati Bell has recently changed their network architecture so that it acts more like bridging but some things still don't work. (VPN most notably.) A great resource for folks that are having problems opening up ports and things is this page by a guy who used to have DSL here. His advice was so good that he got hired up by a broadband startup. :-)