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Non-Profit Australian ISP: Thrift Through Penguins
An unnamed correspondent writes: "Typically, rural areas in Australia have been left behind when it comes to adopting new technologies, inlcuding the Internet. GrowZone Online is a Linux powered, non-profit ISP that has over 40 points of presence covering an area of 412,000 square kilometers across South Central Queensland, Australia. What was achieved by the small technical team is quite remarkable, including hacking pppd to support Radius Authentication, MicroSoft CBCP Client-Server support with Radius Integration as well as Idle and Session Timeout functionality. The article is at LinuxWorld.com.au under Enterprise." A 7-man team that's dealt with such a distributed network's administration while hacking pppd deserves some recognition. Note to Americans: 412,000 square kilometers is about 3/5 the size of Texas.
You've got really small thumbs. You know what they say about men with small thumbs, don't you?
--Shoeboy
Or the British Board of Film Classification, as we like to call it over here...
www.bbfc.co.uk
I can think of several reasons why it might not be in the interest of a for-profit business to provide the best service:
1. They obtain their customers by sinking cash in advertising, and knowing that the average customer will not bother to change ISP unless their existing one inconveniences them severely. They find that the small number of customers gained by having excellent service rather than mediocre-but-not-too-annoying service is not worth the money that the upgrade would cost.
2. They are the only ISP around, or the only ISP providing some particular service. Again, it is now in their interest to provide the service that costs them the least, regardless of quality.
Most ISP's operate on some variant of Principle 1.
I can also think of several reasons why the not-for-profit ISP might still want to provide a decent service.
1. They are running the service because they use it themselves. Therefore it is in their interest for it to work well.
2. They are doing it for the geekish joy of setting it all up beautifully and getting the best out of their kit.
3. They are doing it to gain a reputation within the local community, or the geek community, or to have something impressive to put on a CV. Are they going to want to muck it up and look like idiots?
The only alternative for most people is to make a long distance call to the nearest major center, which can get just as pricey!
I now live in Sydney, and have cable. I'm paying the same money (per month) for a far better service. There is a very big divide between rural and urban areas in Australia, so anything that can help people connect and provided them with information that they need is great! I (used to) know how isolated they feel :)
No, no, you've got it all wrong.
The official measurement of volume in the UK is how many double-decker buses would fit into a space. And the measurement of length is always by comparison with Nelson's Column. I'm not sure what the unit for area is, but you could simply divide one by the other, thus measuring area in 'double-decker buses per Nelson's Column'.
As for Surrey, do you mean the ancient county, or the administrative county after chopping off most of south-west London?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
They're crap hitch-hikers?
Under the basic principles of capitalism, for-profit ISPs offer us the assurance of quality. There are many, many ISPs all competing these days, and for the most part, it's a level playing field. No ISP could risk offering a poorer package than its competitors, or all its customers would switch and run the ISP out of business -- this is why "pay per hour" plans died out so quickly. On the other hand, a non-profit ISP isn't out to make money, so why do they care what you think of them?
Now, given that Australia Internet is currently severely restricted by the Telus monopoly (which is, to be certain, idiotic), you might think that is still a improvement. But it seems to me like that this isn't much better -- sure, it might be non-profit, but if it doesn't have incentive to improve, you might wind up stuck using a ridiculously overpriced ISP with terrible customer service. And you know what? They won't care, because they don't want your money.
Not only that, but poor standards for Australian Internet access is only to going to lead to trouble down the line -- people begin to accept what they use as being "the standard", and are reluctant to demand something better. Why do you think people don't care about stuff like the Internet Millennium Copyright Act or M1cr05of7's monopolies? Even dictators can wield power over Third World countries, and no one cares. Because people are used to the way things are now, and don't see things the way they should be. Better isn't always good enough.
Note to Americans: 412,000 square kilometers is about 3/5 the size of Texas.
What's with this metric BS. It's too confusing.
Anyway, here's some handy conversion info:
An inch is the outer part of a man's thumb, 25.4 millimeter to be exact. 12 inches to a foot, two feet to a cubit or three feet to a yard.
A rod/pole is 5.5 yards (16.5 feet): The size of a big stick carried around by builders (hence the name).
Four rods make a chain (22 yards) - the distance between two (cricket) wickets. Ten chains make a furlong. A furlong square is ten acres. Eight furlongs make a mile.
A perch was originaly a big stick, but later became a volume. A perch was a pile of stone one rod long by one foot wide by one cubit high).
--Shoeboy
...will only make sense to those familiar with the state of net access in country Qld over the past five or so years.
Today's topic is:
Pegasus Networks was doing this years ago.
Discuss.
...j
(shamelessly stolen from the Simpsons)
Wah!
"On the Waterfront" wasn't bad .....
-- the most controversial site on the Web
I am living in Queensland and have the luxury of surfing the Web on a cable connection, albeit and expensive and bandwith capped one. But due to the tyranny of distance in Queensland (one of Australia's biggest states!) and the fact that the vast majority of the population can be found in the South-East corner of the state many rural Queenslanders would kill for the bandwidth that is available to those living in the States Capital, this type of initiative should be supported whether it can truly offer a quality service or not, because not even the major ISPs in the nation can be bothered to offer service to Outback Australians, kudos GrowZone and hopefully people like you can spread Linux throughout Australia, god knows i would like to use this cable connection through linux!!!
Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied. -Otto von Bismarck
Surely all Internet businesses are non-profit?