[rescue] misc old Sun resources

[James Lockwood]

On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Dave McGuire wrote:

>   Ahh, dialup.  I haven't done dialup in a VERY long time; I guess I'd
> kinda assumed that nobody else around here has either. :-(

The majority of the USA is not served by economical high speed Internet
access (consumer satellite doesn't count).

I've been on about a 14.4k dialup for most of the past year.  In the past,
I went through dialup (300/1200/2400/9600/14.4/28.8) to ADSL (1526/256) to
IDSL (144) back to a 57.6k dialup, and now back to poor phone lines.

I was the most satisfied with the 144k IDSL (Northpoint/Zyan).  It was
fast enough for nearly everything I needed to do, and was rock-solid
reliable.  I was over 50k feet from the CO.  I had one 25 minute outage
total in 7 months (and then Northpoint folded and took Zyan with them in
the meltdown).  Pacbell's ADSL was ok when it worked, but the DSL group
and the telco linemen chased each other around like the Keystone Cops.
I'd rather have reliability and service than speed any day.

My COs feature set would fit on a grain of rice.  ISDN would be metered by
the minute if I could actually get it.  No cable modems.

However, there is a small ISP roughly 2000 feet from my property.  A flat
rate license from the local electric company to hang wire on their poles
would run me $50/yr, and I could get lineman support from the local
cableco and insurance for another $100/yr.  If I can find a good deal on
hangable fiber I'll consider running it straight into the ISP (who can
sell me bandwidth for 20% over their upstream charges).  Wireless is
another option, though I don't have clear LOS.

-James