[geeks] @home has finally done it...

[David Passmore]

Disclaimer: I am a systems architect for @Home.

I have worked for ISPs in one form or another for 7 years running. If you
are a 'clued' user in a consumer world then you should not be using a
consumer service, period. At ~$40, @Home *is* a consumer service. It's for
Joe Websurfer. It constantly amazes me what people have come to expect for
$40 a month. @Home sees only a small fraction of that revenue; the rest goes
to the cable company to compensate for their investment in hybrid fibre/coax
to new homes. We make less revenue per subscriber than your average dialup
ISP. Go figure.

Do you want to know why DSL companies are going under, and @Home is
struggling? It's because right now you cannot provide multi-megabit service
to the consumer for $40 a month. It's impossible. It simply costs too much.
That business model was founded on the idea that you would eventually get
economies of scale. Well, it was wrong.

Bitching that your $40 a month service doesn't let you run a small ISP out
of your basement is not going to get you anywhere. Get a connection that
will serve your needs explicitly. Speakeasy will eventually come down on you
as well, since they can no more escape the consumer DSL business model
failure than anyone else can.

You have two options: run your servers in co-lo (which is what I do) or get
a business SDSL, T1, or frame-relay line. 

Whatever you do, don't expect a company that has millions of customers to
allow them to run any kind of servers. It opens them up to all sorts of
liability, DoS, and security concerns. No one has the capability to properly
police millions of mostly novice users trying to set up servers...
especially for $40 a month. Starting to see a pattern here?

David