[clue-tech] DSL providers

[Nate Duehr]

On 2/14/07, Jed S. Baer <thag at frii.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:03:36 -0700
> William wrote:
>
> > If, in fact, you continue to believe that
> > you do not need an ISP to access the Internet, then I truly hope you'll
> > read this message and learn not to make that mistake before you try it.
> > :)
>
> No point at all in belaboring definitions. Nor qualifications, for that
> matter (so I won't trot mine out). The simple fact is that if you want
> Qwest to provide you with a usable connection, and nothing else, you tell
> them no voice and no ISP. i.e., communicate in the terms they're using for
> the services they're offering.

As someone who doesn't feel like trotting out my qualifications
either, other than to say I've been doing computer networks since
before the 1990's...

I've never heard Qwest refer to my circuit as "not having an ISP", but
I don't use Qwest's connectivity to the backbone.  In fact, whenever
I've had to contact them about it, they show FRII as the "ISP" on the
circuit, and as far as I could tell -- their screens require that you
have one... either themselves (which is actually MSN these days, not
really Qwest -- if you're a residential customer, although if you talk
to them correctly you can use Qwest and business users get Qwest's
infrastructure also), or another ISP.

I think an order for a DSL circuit "without an ISP termination" would
go nowhere fast in Qwest's system... if you used that terminology and
they handled it, great... they just put in the default -- themselves
or MSN.  Their order-taker kids really don't know the difference, but
their supervisors (usually) do.

But the definition of an ISP still stands... the organization that
actually routes you onto the backbone(s) at large.  And it fits the
original ISP model, as well... early ISP's didn't even have DNS
servers... that was part of hosting.  (Although the term "hosting"
really didn't exist as a well-known term back then, either.)

Early Internet connectivity was a static non-RFC1918 "real" Internet
address and a pipe... what you did with it from there, was your
responsibility -- including your DNS, SMTP servers, whatever...
today's it's virtually impossible to get a real static
backbone-routable address without paying extra for it.  It's a shame
that NAT became so popular instead of IPv6.

My earliest ISDN circuit was this way... an IP and a router, and
that's what you got for your close-to-$200/month.  Then for me, next
came along Rhythms SDSL which was almost as barren, but they had a
Usenet server and DNS/mail if you wanted it.  And then a house move
and availability of ADSL via Qwest transport to FRII as the
"terminating ISP".  [Ha, anyone want an SDSL "modem"?  It might still
be out in the garage, but I think I finally chucked it... Copper
Mountain CopperRocket, I believe...]

As someone else alluded to, the ordering process for FRII is
painless... start with them and they'll handle Qwest.  There's
professionals for these things nowadays.

Back when I had the ISDN circuit, I remember teaching the installer
what a SPID was, showing him the "fancy" Zyxel router screens, and
then wandering outside with the "butt" set to fix his mis-punched
66-block after I realized that I had an "open" on one side of the
2-wire portion of the ISDN BRI because he punched half to my condo,
and half to the neighbor's phone line.  For his part, he spent the
better portion of a day taking all the bridge-taps off the circuit,
and was pretty tired by the time he got around to doing the
punch-downs at the condo... (GRIN)... oh yeah, then two days of
explaining to the CO tech that I needed AT&T 5ESS style ISDN, not NI-1
or NI-2 or whatever it was set to by default back in those days from
the Nortel CO...

Nate