[sf-lug] Alternative to PacBell DSL: sonic.com

[Rick Moen]

Quoting ron (rondosxx at yahoo.com):

> Maybe sonic can help your friend.

Sonic.net is a well-respected local provider, modulo some past problems
with labour relations.  (See link from the front page of
http://linuxmafia.com/, down near the bottom, in the Google Juicebox,
for details.)  I happen to prefer Raw Bandwidth Communications, and have
been a happy customer for many years (since Northpoint's SDSL network
shut down).

But that, alas, would be the smallest of the friend's problems.

As I pointed out, the volunteer's extended courtesy of PacBell/SBC
shooting him in his pedal extremities would have been a non-issue 
if my friend had taken some modest measures (which I listed) to keep his
Internet presence _portable_.

It's supposed to go like this:  Scenario #1.  Connectivity downtime?  No
problem:  Pick up the box, move it to generic IP elsewhere, repoint the
DNS, twiddle a couple of IP references in /etc/, done.

Scenario #2.  Machine collapsed, and/or it got switched off and you
can't reach it to fix it?  No problem:  Deploy spare (and equally cheap)
box on a different IP, using nightly backup data, proceeding otherwise
as in scenario #1.  

My friend was stymied by downtime because he didn't realise that
(lower-speed, non-colo) IP service is dirt-cheap, as are kickaround
Linux machines.  Once you realise that, the solution's obvious.

The friend, however, is planning to spend a big amont of money per month
on a "hosted solution", because he wants to buy a solution rather than
provide it from readily available things he has everywhere around him.
As I said in the Linux User Group HOWTO, there's a cultural problem:
Most people, most of the time, value at cost things they receive for
free -- and I wasn't charging him for my advice and suggestions.  ;->