RE: OT: QWest experiences???

Thank you so much, for elucidating some of the not obvious aspects of this 
subject. Good tech.
George

At 06:06 PM 4/19/2005, you wrote:

>>  I wonder if anyone has published a table
>>of the capabilities of various good, local ISP's, such as Oz, Blarg,
>>Drizzle, Zipcon, 2Alpha and others.
>
>I know the Puget Sound Business Journal publishes a list once a year, but 
>sadly they do not check the validity of the data and as such, some of it 
>is grossly inaccurate.
>
>Aside from that, I'm not really aware of one.  The UW CS department used 
>to have a page dedicated to the topic but I think it has not been updated 
>in a very long time.
>
>Might be a worthy addition to the Seattle Wireless web, esp. denoting 
>which ISPs are WiFi friendly and which have restrictive terms of service 
>that deny you the right to use your connection as you see fit...
>
>>  Would Oz be willing to share that
>>information?
>
>Of course.  Email me off-list with any specific questions and I'll gladly 
>provide it.
>
>>   Another aspect that I have wondered about is where the servers
>>are kept. and what the backup, redundancy, UPS, etc. situation is.
>
>These are very good questions to be asking.  It is difficult and expensive 
>to build high-availability networks and server farms.  Many ISPs have 
>historically not been able to do this due to the cost.  It has only been 
>in recent years that it has become pretty much the industry standard 
>amongst independent ISPs.  Redundant power, cooling, servers, storage, 
>routing, switching, transit, load balancing, etc. are all essential at 
>this point (from my point of view) as customers are very unforgiving about 
>downtime.
>
>>  Does the
>>hardware usually reside in some hosting service somewhere?
>
>Most of the WA ISPs I know keep their server farms in the downtown Seattle 
>carrier hotel.  Some keep their servers off-site (e.g. at their offices) 
>and others may use off-site colocation facilities.
>
>>   There is a tier
>>of ISP's, such as (I think) SeaNET, Olympus, etc. who charge more than the
>>average, and the only rationale that I see is that they may have
>>"industrial-strength" facilities, at least some of whose aspects could be
>>more important for businesses that can't afford ANY outages (at least ones
>>that don't take down their competition as well).
>
>I don't know anything about the two you've mentioned, but would encourage 
>you to ask the sorts of questions you have been asking of ISPs you are 
>considering using, especially if your Internet connection is used for 
>business purposes.  There are big differences in how things are built and 
>operated behind the scenes.
>
>>Note that they also ding you more if you want to run servers, which is
>>aggravating since it seems that this only requires 30 seconds at the
>>keyboard to unblock a port or several.
>
>This isn't the issue.  The issue has been twofold: first, folks running 
>servers tend to consume a lot more bandwidth than the average 
>user.  Second, a lot of folks sadly set up insecure mail systems which 
>often simply relay mail to the ISP's server.  This is a spammer's dream 
>come true and every ISP's nightmare.
>
>Many ISPs now filter port 25 in particular.  Some do not do any 
>filtering.  (We are in the latter category, for purely philosophical 
>reasons, but I can certainly see the argument for the former..  The 
>question really becomes 'should we protect our users from themselves' and 
>if so, 'where do we draw the line?'  It's a slippery slope, and one I'd 
>personally prefer not to slide down.)
>
>What I personally find most despicable is when ISPs like Verizon use this 
>kind of a security issue as an excuse to force you in to their marketing 
>programs.  Verizon.net, for example, will prevent you from using anything 
>but a Verizon.net email address on their network. (They will not allow you 
>to, for example, send mail as [email protected] from a Verizon.net DSL 
>connection.)  This is nothing more than a marketing ploy; their argument 
>that it is somehow a matter of security is simply nonsense.  I am amazed 
>that their customers tolerate it.
>
>>By the way, what is the implication of "Pro" services.  Is that linked to
>>Qwest's "Pro" service, and what does this buy for you?  "Guaranteed"
>>bandwidth?  Faster repair service?  Ego-stroking?
>
>I'd say it has more to do with perception than reality, personally, but I 
>suspect that Qwest would tell you something different.  On the ISP's end 
>of things, the PVCs look and behave the same.  There may be subtle 
>differences on the Qwest side that I am not aware of.
>
>>Although I have great distain for Comcast in general, it seems to me that
>>the definition of "ADSL" is that, "...we don't promise anything", so granted
>>that what you say about loops is true, maybe it's not much different with
>>Qwest or any of the others offering ADSL, where it may be the broken-down
>>plant, rather than the traffic, that limits you, but you still have no right
>>to having it fixed.
>
>I think the biggest differences between DSL and cable modem service are 
>choice of ISP (which leads to competition, lower prices, innovation, 
>better service, etc.) and performance (because you aren't sharing the last 
>mile connection with the entire city).  It's pretty much a no-brainer.  It 
>is true that the ILECs have historically tried to paint DSL in a "best 
>effort" or "non-business-grade" light as they were afraid of cannibalizing 
>their very lucrative T1 & frame relay business.  They have more recently 
>realized that if they don't eat their own lunch, someone else will, and 
>have made great strides in this regard.  That said, DSL has its own set of 
>technical limitations (relating to loop length and quality, mostly) and 
>isn't perfect -- but in my experience, once it works, it's pretty much 
>dead reliable and fades in to the background, much as electrical service 
>does. YMMV.
>
>-- Jared
>
>--
>Jared B. Reimer <[email protected]>
>The River Internet Access Co.
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