Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 02:04:55 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: cjclark@alum.mit.edu Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ISP in Si Valley Message-ID: <200006080204.TAA24021@usr09.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <20000607114248.A307@dialin-client.scitec.com> from "Crist J. Clark" at Jun 07, 2000 11:42:48 AM
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> I just relocated to San Jose, CA, and I know there are plenty of > readers of this list in that area. Right now I am temporarily housed > so coax cable or DSL are probably not worthwhile options. All I want > is a local phone number to dial-up to. I'd just go with one of the > national mega-ISPs, but the CDs they send out run on Windoze, which I > do not. I can imagine the phone conversation now trying to extract the > information needed to configure my PPP from one of their help desk > drones. I shudder. > > Anyone have a suggestion for a local ISP in the Valley? I just want to > call and connect, a maildrop is good but not necessary. No frills, low > bills. If anyone can reassure me that using one of the big guys, AOL, > ATT, etc., is not too painful (or the trick to make it painless), that > would be just as good. I use Primenet, which was acquired by Global Crossing. I've used them since they were just "Primenet", and I got them because they had POPs in the areas in which I formerly lived, now lived, expected to travel for the holidays with the family, and reasonably expected to travel. The official name is "GlobalCenter's Primenet" or just "GlobalCenter" now. I pay ~$20/month, which is pretty standard. You can get cheaper if you just want IP dialtone; if that's all you want, you might want to check out UUNET dialups. Be aware that without an ISP mail relay, any dialup you get is probably not going to be able to send mail to most of the world directly, unless you get a static IP (and ARIN will not give out address blocks to ISPs who give out static IPs to dialups, until they convert all their dialups to dynamic IP). If you get a shell account and use it for mail access, they have very good Anti-SPAM as well (although I am told that I am on a number of SPAMmer blacklists as "don't send to this guy, he will volunteer as many hundreds of dollars worth of hours as it takes to shut down your relay" ...it's good to be net.famous that way. So your SPAM mileage may vary, but I think it probably won't). I guess they are technically not "local", having started in Phoenix, but they are pretty much everywhere, now. They use BSDI systems for their shell accounts and mail servers, so they are BSDI friendly, and their techs are BSD knowledgable. You will get a Windows CDROM, and will have to know how to set up PPP yourself, but you really can't avoid that. They have plenty of local POPs (I might be shooting myself in the modem here by saying this, I guess...). They have also been outstanding as far as technical support; I have had two configuration based hosted domain outages in perhaps six years or so, and the person who answered the phone (usually in the middle of the night) was able to resolve the problem quickly and competently, and understood the technical jargon involved in me tell them exactly what was wrong (I was right both times, BTW, so that may have helped the promptness, but I rather think it was their competence, and that they would have found the problem themselves). The only issue I have seen is that I have to have a somewhat longer modem connection time than the default for PPP; I attribute this to the default having been chosen prior to 56k modems becoming popular with ISPs, and so the train time for 56k wasn't taken into account. You may also wish to contact sef@kithrup.com; he's in the SJ area, and has had truckk with several very good ISPs, including one that would put Centrex ISDN in so that you payed flat rate tarrif for ISDN connectivity, so long as you were in one of the Centrex LATEs. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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