[clue-tech] DSL providers

[William]

Hex Star wrote:
>
>     Welllllll... not to belabor this TOO much, because it doesn't
>     matter -- but...
>
Please do!  This is educational for everyone and fits both the thread 
topic and the mailing list.  :)
>
>     Qwest *is* actually providing routing -- and there's plenty of routers
>     involved between your DSL connection and FRII... you just can't SEE
>     them because you're on what's called a "Virtual Private Connection"
>     over ATM.
>
Yes, and that's a different kind of routing than what I was attempting 
to illustrate, of course (which you noted later).  :)
>
>     [Another interesting side-note to this is that the MTU of a PPPoA
>     connection isn't big enough to hold a full 1500 MTU Ethernet frame.
>     It fragments.  You can often help your through-put on Qwest DSL by
>     setting your MTU's appropriately for the lowest-common-denominator
>     transport -- in this case PPPoA -- so you're not fragmenting every
>     packet that has a full payload at the DSL "modem".]
>
I see comments on this from time to time, but I've never seen a good 
explanation nor any authoritative best-practices.  Some literature says 
to set MTU as big as possible and let the fragmentation occur -- citing 
relatively inconsequential repacking delay (fragmentation being an 
expected aspect of modern networking).  On the other hand, I've never 
seen anyone recommend a too-small MTU size.  Across the board, what MTU 
setting do you recommend?
>
>     Nate
>
>
> Why do you guys make getting access to the internet so complicated by 
> choosing some company that deals through another company for you? Why 
> not just make things simple by choosing one of the following bigger 
> ISPs which'll probably be much cheaper and support many more areas: 
> AT&T or Comcast?
Simply put:  to get a better deal (and truly, it's not that complicated; 
for example:  just one phone call to FRII gets everything set up for you 
with both FRII and Qwest).  We generally enjoy better service (smaller 
ISPs tend to have more knowledgeable and responsive technical staff), 
better performance (we're not competing against so many other users at 
once -- cable, after all, is a shared link), and more freedom (we 
generally pay less for services like dedicated IPA subnets).  [This 
opinion is based on historical experience.  I realize company strategies 
change all the time and I can't say with evidence that these advantages 
still hold true today; though I expect they do.]

William


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