[conspire] he.net woes --> seeking ISP recommendations

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Eric De Mund (ead-conspire at ixian.com):

> Thanks for the recommendations. Do any of you gentlemen get your net-
> work connectivity from another provider, e.g. from cable, and have your
> domains hosted at Raw Bandwidth?

Speaking for myself, I buy, er, _raw bandwidth_ from Raw Bandwidth
Communications.  And what's this about "domains hosted"?  

(Sorry, what is that frequency, Kenneth?  One of us is not quite
communicating.)

I pay RBC every six months for frame transport over aDSL (which
basically piggybacks on monopoly telco / ILEC (SBC or whatever the hell
they're called this week) from the RBC DSLAM equipment over the monopoly
telco's "last mile" cabling to the house, plus IP routing for the
household's six static IP addresses.

They probably also provide some services on _their_ servers, for all I
know -- mailboxes, DNS, whatever.  I don't use that stuff, and prefer to
do my own, with one exception: The have two really good commercial
Usenet feeds, one of which is Supernews, and I forget what the other one
is.

With that exception, I neither pay for nor desire "hosting":  I do 
everything on my own PIII bitty box, plus a WAP or two, etc.

> If I got my actual network connectivity from Raw Bandwidth, it
> appears that I'd be required to re-sign with SBC, no?

_No._  (Eh?)

It suffices that you have (any) SBC/whatever voice telephone service, to
give you the requisite functional copper pair.  You'll be installing a
splitter for the high-frequency carrier-wrapped DSL signal at your end,
or paying RBC mumblety-mumble to do that for you.  (It's pretty dirt
simple, really, and I have no clue how much Mike Durkin of RBC charges
to drive out and turn a screwdriver for you.  I was able to do it even
in the middle of an exhausting residential move.)

> May I ask how much you gentlemen are paying or did pay Raw Bandwidth,
> monthly, for which services?

Last time I crunched RBC's numbers for Deirdre and Cheryl's benefit, it
was like this (dividing up the billed six-month figures to arrive at
monthly ones):

---<snip>---

Each month is like this:

Residential DSL                       $44.95
Extra IPs                              15.00
                                       -----
Subtotal                              $59.95
- 10% discount                        <~6.00>  (rounded)
Federal Universal Service Fund charge   1.68  [1]
                                       -----
Total monthly rate                   ~$55.63   (rounded)
                                       =====

[1] http://www.rawbandwidth.com/support/faq/fusf.html

---<snip>---

The "10% discount" is for paying on a six-month basis, instead of
monthly.  The "extra IPs" charge is for having six usable static IPs
instead of the base quantity of one.  I doubt you'd be wishing to pay
for that latter bit.

> I'd prefer not to go too far above $50.00 per month for domain
> hosting. 

To stress again, this is not "domain hosting".  This is IP routing and 
DSL transport to and from my house.  

Actual "hosting" occurs on my antique PIII.  My computer's at my
house.  It does, y'know, DNS, a Web server, public rsync, e-mail,
mailing lists, ssh remote access, and a bunch of other cool things.

1998 technology at its finest.  And I can even talk to the rest of the
Internet, to see the latest dancing gophers and download mp3s of Steven
Colbert saying "Your phone is ringing."