[COLUG] Business net access in Dublin

[William Yang]

Angelo McComis wrote:

> I'll assume this is a home-based biz. Biz class at home is bogus unless
> you need a  guaranteed static IP. Even then, you still don't get control
> over your RDNS, and they refuse to honor any SLAs on uptime. IMHO, its
> the same as residential service but at twice the price.

I'm not sure I'd go that far.  Of course, TWC-biz class happily changed the 
RDNS for my static IP when I asked; it only took a phone call.  While I 
don't directly control it, getting it set to something sane was easy enough 
to do.  The magic phrase I used was "I run a mail server and want to stop 
being blocked because my forward and reverse DNS don't match."

They don't offer SLAs on uptime for residential biz class service, *because 
they can't* -- it's the same physical infrastructure as the residential 
service.  The infrastructure is too crowded and subject to other uses. 
Quality of service is dependent on where you're at and the other users.

And, ever since I went to biz class (Feb 2006), I've had better throughput 
(a median is about 1Mbps, down is about 4 Mbps) than I had with residential 
service (my recollection is that my medians were 0.7 Mbps up, 2.5Mbps down, 
but I'm dredging information out of my memory that was more than 2 years 
ago).  I never really investigated why -- it could be they upgraded the 
area (Worthington, above ground wiring) or it could be the router gives 
precedence.  I seldom see slowdowns, even during peak after-school and 
evening hours.

I'm thinking the maxemail/myfax/efax/faxaway and the likes of the world 
(see http://www.google.com?q=fax+to+email+services) are probably a more 
reliable solution than running their own FAX machines -- or even HylaFAX on 
a Linux box! -- for inbound or outbound service, but whether it makes sense 
really depends on the volume of FAXing that goes on.

	-Bill
-- 
William Yang
wyang at gcfn.net