[lug] colo at home info

[B Giles]

A quick recap for those who were wondering what I learned about (cheap) 
colocation at home options.

1) Comcast only seems to have "comcast pro" as an option, which is really no 
improvement over standard service.  I'm sure it's great if you're a gamer, 
but it's in the same residential block of IP addresses so you'll have some 
of your services blocked, you don't have a static IP address ("persistent IP 
address" is not the same), etc.  Colocated systems need faster uploads, not 
faster downloads, and 5 persistent IP addresses (which are tied to a MAC 
address so you can't easily stack them on a single piece of hardware) isn't 
any better than one.

Still, it turns out that they aren't blocking inbound port 25, yet.  They do 
seem to be blocking port 80, undoubtably because of all of the idiots 
running IIS without knowing it.

2) Qwest is... Qwest.  On the plus side, they aren't as clueless as they 
have been in the past.  The DSL modem successfully established a connection 
immediately - last time I tried it took months of attempts and many hours 
spent on hold before I gave up... and I suspect somebody at the CO had 
turned on service for my neighbor, not me.  (I've caught them going to that 
unit first when I called for service, etc.)

But they're still Qwest.  I repeatedly said that I didn't need an ISP 
because I would be self-hosting - I don't need their web or email servers, I 
can run my own DNS servers, etc.  By the time the DSL modem had arrived, I 
had actually decided to keep the cable modem for its high speed downloads, 
so I could set up my DNS server to hit the comcast server anyway, instead of 
the root server.

Yet when the box arrived I was missing a critical piece of information... 
and discovered that since I MUST have an ISP they had assigned me to a basic 
Qwest one.  Less than $9/month.

There was then a very frustrating couple of minutes spent talking to the 
tech support person.  I needed the ISP for connectivity, the DSL was 
something else.  Everyone must have an ISP.  Blah blah blah blah blah.  Even 
if she's technically correct because of the way Qwest has structured their 
business - and I doubt I get unlimited 640k/256k connectivity for less than 
$9/month - if so I want me a T-1 line for under $60/month!!!  - it's 
unnecessarily confusing for people who explicitly and repeatedly refer to 
"colocating servers" and "just needing a dialtone" and the like.

To be honest, what really pissed me off and made me inflexible was the fact 
that I don't being lied to.  If I agree to pay ~$32 for a DSL line, then I 
expect to pay $32 for that line.  I will not be happy if you come back and 
say that it's really over $40 but I just have to accept that charge.  By one 
measure that's only $9/month, but by another that's an unexpected ~25% 
increase and certainly enough that other options become much more 
attractive.

As for my current situation, I'm exhausted and if I can get my mail via 
cable modem for a few months then I'll do it.  Maybe we'll get a colo coop 
up, or maybe I'll decide to go with a virtual system at tummy.

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