[lug] DSL Service Providers

[Ken Scott]

on 1/7/01 6:46 PM, Stephen F. Kawalko at s.kawalko at ieee.org wrote:

> At 11:56 PM -0700 1/6/2001, Sean Reifschneider wrote:
> 
>> On Sat, Jan 06, 2001 at 09:55:45PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote:
>>> If you're the highly mobile type, and don't mind basically using a
>>> beta-quality network until they finish the buildout, I see that Ricochet
>>> has announced service in Denver now.  128kb/s supposedly through an
>> 
>> Yeah, that would be nice.  They list Boulder as "future coverage".
>> Looks like Longmont is also in that catagory, as is much of Denver.
>> A nice thing about Riccochet is that it has coverage in many airports.
>> Waiting for your plane?  Get net...  That'd be nice.
>> 
>> The other thing to look at is Sprint ION.  ion.sprint.com
> 
> Has anyone looked into or tried Sprint's Broadband Direct service?
> 

I have had Sprint Broadband since mid-October and I really like it a lot. My
typical downloads are 50-60 Kbytes/sec, upload probably about 10Kbytes/sec.
I have not had any downtime since I've been connected.

I have a RH7 box connected directly to the modem device that they provided,
and I share my connection via NAT to the rest of the house. I do have an
IMAP, ssh and ftp service running, but have not gotten any grief from Sprint
about it. I did have a phone call from them the other night. They were
basically calling all their subscribers, helping them to turn off the
Windows sharing features. Apparently they are seeing a lot of problems with
virii that replicate themselves over Windows Networking.

There was very recently an article on Slashdot about the Terms of Service.
The people on Slashdot made them sound horrible. To me, it sounded the same
as any other ISP. They basically say "don't do anything illegal or immoral
with our network" and say that just because they don't enforce the terms
against one person, that doesn't make the agreement invalid. Normal
corporate CYA. 

I have been incredibly happy with the service. USWest/Qwest will probably
never get DSL working in my neighborhood (old part of Briargate in Colorado
Springs) and the cable company is getting worse by the day. I don't regret
my choice for a moment.

With the service, you get the modem adapter (an external device about the
size of a hardback book), which has a static IP address assigned to it. The
installers put everything in place, and used their laptop to verify that the
service was working. They didn't care that I had five machines in the room
where they installed it, and I am only being charged for the single machine
service.

HTH,
Ken Scott

-- 
<><      Ken Scott   ken at optikos.net   http://www.pcisys.net/~kscott

                This is the day that the Lord has made;
                Let us rejoice and be glad in it          -- Psalm 118:24