Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 01:28:28 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org> Cc: <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: ARG!!! 450 Client host rejected: cannot find your hostnam Message-ID: <006501c0bb4e$e4f24620$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <15048.6365.713373.341764@guru.mired.org>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: Mike Meyer [mailto:mwm@mired.org] > >I'd gladly change services, if I could find someone that's >better. Since I can't, I use what's available, and work around the >crap as much as I can. > I'm not talking about folks like you who have no choice and are in the grip of a monopoly. That's not representative of the majority of users that have problems. > >That's true - but to get a server that's managed the way I want it >managed, *those* are the two choices I've got. I don't need much >bandwidth. I do need recent versions of Apache, Postgres, and Python - >as well as those things configured to my specifications. Even offering >to install a modern database server - meaning one with transaction >support - gratis was turned down. > The point was that between those two choices your going to pay a lot more for the colocation, than for putting a server at the end of a circuit to an ISP - and that is perfectly fair. > >They don't permit anything that looks like resale of bandwidth. I'm >not doing anything that looks like resale of bandwidth. If your TOS >won't let me run a web server for my business over my link - I'm not >even doing e-commerce on it - then you're not providing a solution I >can use. > There would not be much point in selling an Internet access circuit to a business in which you wern't permitted to run a webserver, now would there? Would I even be bothering with this discussion if I was working at an ISP that was so screwy that they didn't permit businesses to run webservers at the end of their ISDN/DSL/V90/Other dedicated circuits? Do ISP's like that even exist? > >I didn't go find some open relay. I asked my ISPs if they had a >solution to a problem I had as a PAYING customer, and one of them - >the most competent of the bunch, if you ask me - replied with a host >name for an open relay. They understand that there are problems for >which an open relay is a perfectly valid solution, so they run >one. They do go to great lengths to keep it hidden. > How could they possibly keep a true open relay hidden? Scanning for them is rediculously simple. I would be surprised if they had a true open relay that wasn't listed in MAPS by now. More likely they have a relay that permits blind relaying from any of their IP number groups. >doesn't provide. I obviously can't spend a couple of hours every day >looking for a better ISP. I do do that whenever I get pissed at mine, >or have to deal with the problems at hand - which amounts to about >once a quarter. > Of course not, but it's going to take less time for you to find a different ISP than for you to file a lawsuit against your current one, which is why lawsuits like the OneMain class action just drive me up the wall. > >You can't switch to what doesn't exist - you can only work around the >lack of it. As long as there are areas where you can't buy the kind >of service you want, there's going to continue to be a need for >workarounds, and they are going to continue to be part of life. Just >like spam filters bouncing perfectly legitimate email are going to be >part of life until there are no more spammers. > If competition truly worked in the Internet access business then those areas that had sole-source providers would rapidly have competition and you would not have a problem. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Users that are unwilling to switch their current ISP that they can't stand, don't create the market for competition that would create the kind of ISP that they would want to have. With this defeatist attitude, if I was looking to site a new ISP that would offer the services you want, why would I possibly be induced to put it in your area? That's the point I'm trying to make. > >Here, I don't have those choices. Until three months ago, I had one >(count-em: one, uno, ein, 1) choice for broadband access: cable >modems. Neither ISDN nor DSL were available. You couldn't be in _that_ low density an area or you wouldn't have cable - they don't run cable TV out to the farm. > The cost of a leased line >this far from the POP was comparable to colocation. Well, now that's something to consider. If your business is based on good Interent connectivity, isn't it easier to move Mohammed to the Mountain, than to try to do it the other way? DSL showed up last >quarter; when I checked on it, I had two DSL choices. Neither one >offered a static IP, so why switch? > Did you even _tell_ the DSL providers that if either of them offered a static IP that you would switch? How are they going to know about potential customers if you don't tell them? >Personally, I'd like to live on the land my great grandparents >homesteaded, but the choices for broadband there are even worse than >they are here. > You do bring up one interesting issue - your running a business that's dependent on good Internet access, yet you don't live in an area _with_ good Internet access. Now, I've looked at your webpage and I don't see that you have an office of people to manage, so I'll assume your working out of your house and I'll say that there's many reasons that people purchase private homes, and I can understand that usually they don't consider good Internet connectivity when doing so. However, office space for businesses is an entirely different matter, let me relate a short story that is something along these lines, and illustrates how stupidly some people consider things. We have a client that's a small business that is an office of about 20-30 people. We've had them for 3 years now and their business has increasingly been getting more and more Internet based, whereas 3 years ago they didn't know an e-mail message from a hole in the ground, today it's vital. Anyway, about 4 months ago the owner moved the business to a different office building in a different part of town - it's kind of a run-down place, not an out-and-out rat-infested place of course, but there's a few strip joints up the street, that sort of thing. He was telling us all about it, he was so pleased with the move because it gave them a ton more space and the rent was less than the previous place they were in. They are obviously growing, have been adding people, and needed the room. Anyway, the owner has been getting desperate for high-bandwidth connectivity, but when we checked on it this building is in a bad part of town for delivering services - Frame Relay is all they can get. Now, you would think that this would be a no-brainer - consider that they saved nearly a thousand dollars a month in rent after their move, they got far more space into the bargain, the money saved is more than enough to cover the cost of Telco services. But, the owner talks to his friends that own other businesses (in more expensive parts of town, obviously) and who can get DSL, and is dead-set against paying the increased Telco charges for Frame. Here's a fool who has saved a ton of money by relocating and only has to pay a little bit more for Telco services as a result of moving - but because he's convinced that he shouldn't be paying more than $60 per month for Internet access, he's going to screw himself and all his employees. And, this guy isn't alone. We regularly get calls from Realtors who are desperate for no/no-go DSL qualifications for buildings because the client won't sign a lease until they are guarenteed they can get DSL - even when they are getting fantastic deals for office space (better than what we are paying, I might add). Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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