[CLUE-Talk] OpenSouce Friendly ISP [WAS Re: [CLUE-Tech] Easiest DHCP]

[Jeremiah Stanley]

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> I've had some problems with AT&T, particularly the disruption, but I
> couldn't bring myself to go back to Qworst. The choice is pretty much
> between Evil 1 and Evil 2...

I stayed with The Lesser Evil(tm) myself. Not by choice mind you, I can't
get DSL two blocks away from where I used to live (and had it). Another
reason not to live in Arvada I suppose...

> Well, if anybody has the funds for a start-up, I'm available...

That makes two of us! I'd personally love to work for a microISP...

> > Is it too much of a niche market?  I doubt you could raise capital to
> > become a national contender.  But what about a small local ISP here in
> > Denver?  I would consider switching to an ISP who marketed themselves
> > as OpenSource friendly.
> 
> I'd definitely switch if there was a Linux-friendly ISP with high-speed
> (DSL or cable) access.

I think 'Linux-friendly' needs to be defined here. With most local ISP's 
that I've dealt with in town (smaller ones, not Qwaste) their policy is 
that they can't support you, but you are free to use whatever you want. I 
think in the case of the larger, national, ISP's their policy derives from 
a need to standardize what their support people can handle and not handle. 
I have eaten vegetables that had more knowledge and personality than the 
bulk of Tier 1 support people I've talked to. So, they make support books 
that they can thumb through to find answers. There really are too many 
distros and options of software that you could use to get a linux dial up 
working that I, having experience with most of them, wouldn't want to walk 
someone who doesn't through over the phone. It's hard enough to get 
some people to ping things, and that is a simple command.

> Well, I think that might be an ISP policy, not a Qwest policy. There are
> other ISPs who can offer DSL here, where Qwest provides the line but the
> ISP provides everything else -- I'd be curious to know what their
> policies are.

The ISP's that are not going to give you trouble are the ones that will 
delve out a subnet of IP's to you for a charge. It won't be as cheap, but 
they can't really tell you that they won't support you if all you need to 
do is set some static IP's. http://www.idcomm.com/ was very good to me 
while I used them (almost 9 years for dial-up and DSL). The nice lady that 
I got many times on the phone (they had router issues and not enough 
bandwidth when DSL was still wet behind the ears, it's better now) that 
kept telling me that "We don't support Linux or UNIX!", and I would reply, 
"That's good, now tell me what I'd have to do to convince you that your 
router is dropping my packets if I were running Windows and I'll reboot".

It seems obvious to me that they should just be supporting standards like
TCP/IP and DHCP. When in reality they have to support J.  Random Luser who
can't figure out why his computers cupholder won't open when he is
listening to a CD. It's sad, but until Aunt Tillie can /sbin/ifconfig with
the best of them, she's gonna need the hand holding and godlike portions
of patience. 

JStanley
- -- 
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, 
pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.  - Matt Groening
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