Re: High Speed Internet costs (was: Email hosting)
First off, the government owns the airwaves, and charges high prices to purchase rights to them. Or, if you prefer, you can have everyone operate in an unlicensed band (like the 802.11b stuff), and deal with the inevitable chaos that will result once serious usage picks up. This article has always depressed me because it paints such an attractive picture of the way things *could* be... http://www.gildertech.com/public/telecosm_series/airways.html [ Discussion of spread spectrum tech vs. FCC's spectrum auctions ] ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
... There's no correction here ... Then please explain to me why almost every single DSL company has gone out of business. This is certainly not authoritative but I've heard that, despite the ruling that ordered the telcos to allow their competitors (CLECs ?) access to their COs, many DSL providers routinely found that access denied or impeded such that they were obliged to waste time and money on hiring lawyers and filing grievances, with the result that many of the smaller ones (which otherwise had a half-decent chance of making a go of it) went under. Didn't the FCC recently announce that the telcos might no longer be required to provide such access? Sweet deal! ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
This is certainly not authoritative but I've heard that, despite the ruling that ordered the telcos to allow their competitors (CLECs ?) access to their COs, many DSL providers routinely found that access denied or impeded such that they were obliged to waste time and money on hiring lawyers and filing grievances, with the result that many of the smaller ones (which otherwise had a half-decent chance of making a go of it) went under. That's why most dsl providers just resell Verizon's DSL lines. I asked my buddy at MV about it, this is also usually what Earthlink does --- What most providers of DSL do, is wholesale from a fabric provider. Usually it is barely worth it as the fabric providers are also selling directly to the public too. So the price they sell to you is just a little below what they sell it at. That, in a nutshell, is why the fabric providers have problems. For example, if a fabric provider (whether it is verizon, choice-one, or anyone else) is selling to the public at $49.95 for an entry level DSL line. They may be selling to ISPs at something like $29.00 per line. A large company then ends up putting a line on the bill that says DSL is $49.95 but the bill actually goes up by $54.95 because there are about $5.00 in taxes on the line but the customer never sees a special entry, instead the normal taxes that they're paying go up. A customer won't notice it because things like telephone bills are usually the same each and every month. The ISP then has to pay $29.00 for the line, plus the same $5.00 in taxes, making the cost of the line $34.00. Now, the ISP must turn around and try to sell this line that they're paying $34.00 at a competitve price, say $49.00 meaning that they make $15.00 per line. They're then supposed to make that $15 cover all the ISP costs, billing, support, bandwidth, servers, personel, etc.. Oh, and the ISP can pass the tax along, but it won't remain hidden making the end user think that the large company is cheaper; especially as the large company can afford to give away a free modem and installation (even though they charge the ISP $125 for the modem and $60 for installation -- which at a profit of $15.00 takes over a year to recoup). Sorry, do I sound tainted? ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, at 8:38am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I think we would all appreciate *some* form of competition in the high-speed ISP market. Just for the record, let me reiterate that (1) I'm no fan of any monopoly, (2) I hate Verizon (nee Bell Atlantic nee NYNEX nee New England Telephone) more than most people here will ever know, (3) I think there does need to be more competition in this and several other markets, (4) I'm sure both Verizon and Comcast aren't bending over backwards to keep their rates low. Hopefully, this will be my last message in this thread. :-) -- Ben Scott [EMAIL PROTECTED] | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do | | not represent the views or policy of any other person or organization. | | All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
In a message dated: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 08:58:11 EST [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Hopefully, this will be my last message in this thread. :-) I hope so too :) -- Seeya, Paul -- Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853 E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
Yeah, I agree with Ben. The market is correcting itself. I'm paying $99 a month for SDSL, and I don't even get that high a speed: 144kbps up and down. However, I don't have the onerous restrictions that Verizon and other providers slap on their customers and I have a static IP, great for hosting web and email. ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Hewitt Tech stated in their Email: hewitt From: Hewitt Tech [EMAIL PROTECTED] hewitt To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] hewitt Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 19:26:40 -0500 hewitt Subject: Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant) hewitt hewitt Ah yes, but why, after a pile of telecommunications companies hewitt went bankrupt laying thousands of miles of buried fibre-optics hewitt cables are we still talking about dial-up connections? What hewitt *does* it cost to deliver high speed? For that matter, I think hewitt copper/fibre is passé. It should be possible to use wireless hewitt and it ought to be dirt cheap. When Mediaone delivered hewitt cable-modem service in our area they thought they'd be doing hewitt well if they got a 3% penetration. One of their techs told me hewitt that in fact they were achieving 17% and higher depending on hewitt the town they were operating in. I know there has been a big hewitt improvement in the speed of connections over the last few hewitt years but we're not exactly using 110 baud modems anymore are hewitt we? Should I expect to pay $100k for a shiny 2.8 gig P4 hewitt computer? Ah the good old days, not! Oh yeah - I remember buying an ATT 8MHz 8086 PC, twin floppies, no HDU, mono (green) monitor, 640KB RAM, and I paid twice what I just paid for a shiny new Athlon with 512MB DDR memory (another 64MB on video card), 60GB HDU, CD-burner, 19 flat-panel... but I have to admit, I still have that old 8086 ;) hewitt hewitt -Alex hewitt hewitt P.S. What we're seeing here is a consolidation of providers hewitt who can get away with high prices because they are monopolies. hewitt Verizon hasn't exactly pushed DSL and most of the companies hewitt that depended on them to provide the lines were driven out of hewitt business. These guys really aren't competing. I saw a hewitt discussion on the Libranet mailing list recently where some hewitt Canadians were relating the cost of DSL and cable-modem in hewitt their areas. They were paying about 1/3 of what we pay. This is beginning to sound like a broken record! First it was prescription drugs - up north the senior citizens have buses which transport them to Canada to fill their prescriptions (some companies are even opening up store fronts to eliminate the trip), and now it's the hi-tech world. While I agree with Ben on how drastic the cuts have been for higher speed connections, it's not like the telco's are constantly paying out funds to totally upgrade their systems. Once a community is wired/rewired (be it phone or cable), it's wired. There are repairs associated with the new equipment, and the usual upgrades from some central point to the world, but the initial outlay of funds to wire the community, the lion's share of the costs, is done. And I thought the break-up of MA-BELL was supposed to increase competition and decrease prices... ;) dlr hewitt hewitt - Original Message - hewitt From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] hewitt To: Greater NH Linux User Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] hewitt Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2003 7:00 PM hewitt Subject: Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant) [... snip ...] -- Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste. -- As seen on the 'net -- ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
RE: High Speed Internet costs (was: Email hosting)
On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] stated in their Email: bscott From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] bscott To: Greater NH Linux User Group [EMAIL PROTECTED] bscott Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 21:44:30 -0500 (EST) bscott Subject: RE: High Speed Internet costs (was: Email hosting) bscott bscott On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, at 9:00pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: bscott The exsiting ISP, be it Vitts, MV, Joe Blow local ISP, they should already bscott have ISP backbone equipment in place for their dialups. bscott bscott Just because a business is already in possession of something doesn't mean bscott you can call it free. Even if they aren't in-debt to pay it off, it has bscott maintenance and depreciation costs. We all know how fact computers bscott depreciate... bscott bscott At the most they'll have to upgrade their pipe or get an aditional T ... bscott bscott At the most? bscott bscott 100 customers @ 56 kbps = 5600 kbps = 3.6 T1's bscott 100 customers @ 768 kbps = 76800 kbps = 50 T1's bscott bscott Obviously, since consumer services can be oversubscribed, the math doesn't bscott really work out like that, but you should see my point. We're talking an bscott increase in capacity of more than 1000%! bscott I not sure how this applies to ATTBI (Cable) technology, which I thought brought this to the surface. I seem to remember hearing once at a MediaOne presentation that the cable companies had a huge amount of bandwidth available (TV used very little), and they actually had their hardware throttling back their customers. I also thought she said something about the main problem was upgrading the cable network (neighborhoods), but due to cable's design it was extremely easy to upgrade the central locations (heads?) as more customers signed up. If this were the truly the case, wouldn't it be true that there should be no need for any change in speeds and/or major equipment upgrades at this point? This would reflect directly on the rate increases which started this little thread. (But I must admit, I'm extremely ignorant in the realm of cable so my thinking could be totally flawed.) [... snip ...] -- Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste. -- As seen on the 'net -- ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
Derek Martin said: Bleah... As technology improves and becomes more readily available, the prices should be going DOWN, not up. As of my last bill, my broadband connection now costs almost double what it did a year ago ($60.99 vs. $35/mo). That's absurd. Inflation is currently about 0%, and the technology is more widely available. Prices are going up because of an utter lack of competition. There's no incentive to keep them low. It's that simple. There's a guy in Chelmsford suing. He says rates have gone up 6% while inflation is 3%. -- --- Tom Buskey ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Email hosting (was: ATTBI/Comcast rant)
On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 09:37, Jason Stephenson wrote: Yeah, I agree with Ben. The market is correcting itself. I'm paying $99 a month for SDSL, and I don't even get that high a speed: 144kbps up and down. However, I don't have the onerous restrictions that Verizon and other providers slap on their customers and I have a static IP, great for hosting web and email. Ugh, I get 768/768 ADSL for $85/month with no restrictions and as many static IPs as I need within reason (I currently use 4) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
[Fwd: [gnhlug-announce] Quarterly Meeting Announcement - 29 Jan2003, 19:30, Martha's Exchange]
Cross-post to make sure that everyone knows about this! -- Rob LembreeMetro Link Incorporated 29 Milk St. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nashua, NH 03064-1651 http://www.metrolink.com Phone: 954.660.2460 Alternate: 603.577.9714 PGP: 1F EE F8 58 30 F1 B1 20 C5 4F 12 21 AD 0D 6B 29 ---BeginMessage--- Details of the meeting: Who:Vince McHugh, Systems Support Manager NECS\Canon What: High End Linux Printing, using CUPS, Scanning and Imaging documents to a Linux desktop. When: 19:30, 29 January 2003 (Note, this is NEXT week) (Dinner @ 18:00ish - RSVP mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=RSVP ) Where: 2nd floor, Martha's Exchange, Nashua, NH Directions: http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Www/Marthas_directions Vince will expound up Enterprise printing, scanning, and imaging using Linux and the CUPS printing system Additionally, the Reluctant Co-Chairmen, Paul and Rob, will explain their new vision of GNHLUG and it's co-operation with Linux International to become the model Linux User's Group. Since this is a QUARTERLY meeting, there will be *NO* Nashua/MerriLUG/MEBDALUG/MELBA meeting tonight (22 Jan 2003) -- Seeya, Paul Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853 E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE Reluctant Co-Chairman, Greater New Hampshire Linux User's Group (GNHLUG) Reluctant Chairman, Nashua Chapter GNHLUG http://www.gnhlug.org Events: http://md.appropriatesolutions.com/gnhlug/lug_cal/month.php ___ gnhlug-announce mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-announce ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss ---End Message---
Re: init managed or rc script managed services
Marc Evans said:
Hello -
I am pondering the decision logic that is used to decide what processes
are started through the use of inittab versus rc scripts. It seems to me
that several of the distros have chosen to use primarily rc scripts. From
a robustness of service perspective however, it is my opinion that many of
the services that are started by rc scripts really should be managed by
the init process through the /etc/inittab file. I am looking for opinions
on the subject.
From an admin point of view, using /etc/inittab is (kindof) like using
/etc/rc.local. Imagine you have to update the startup script for a
daemon on 100 workstations. If it's in rc.local, you'll need to ensure
you don't stomp on other startup scripts embedded in it. If it's in
/etc/init.d, it'll have its own little script, nicely isolated.
Also, init.d entries usually have a nice start/stop/status mechanism.
IMO this is the best part of a SysV vs BSD environment. NetBSD also
has an /etc/init.d folder instead of putting everything in rc
rc.local.
As I have presented this to some people, I have heard the comment that the
convience of being able to run service {foo} stop would be lost by
moving items from rc scripts to inittab. To counter that, I present a
trivial perl script that can be installed in the /etc/rc.d/init.d
directory which manages the entries in /etc/inittab, producing the same
behavior as sysadmins have experienced prior to such changes.
Duplicating the effort.
You might ask, why do I care about this? Well, I have found that on rare
occasions, some of these services terminate, such as due to being out of
memory. Specifically, cron and anacron have been observed to experience
this, and unless the sysadmin is careful after the problem is corrected,
they may never get restarted. By moving these to inittab, I assert that
the system is more robust in its services.
I'd put as little as possible into inittab (and no more so). Then I'd
set up a monitor for the buggy service so I can track and be alerted
when it has problems.
Once that was set up, I'd stop looking at the symptom (stopped
services) and start looking at the problem (no enough memory, etc).
In general, part of good sysadmin practices is to put stuff in /etc/
init.d, not inittab. As a sysadmin coming to a new system, that's where
I'd look first.
I've done admin on a network of BSD systems ( 400) with everything in rc.local
and I'd rather not go back to something similar
--
---
Tom Buskey
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Re: init managed or rc script managed services
OK, fair enough answers. Thank you. Can I ask if your opinion changes if
the system in use was an appliance, e.g. you as the owner don't know that
Linux is on the inside unless you go out of your way to try to discover
it? In other words, no sysadmin will ever see the contents of the inittab
or rc scripts, nor be able to influance them, other then to perform a
firmware upgrade to the appliance?
- Marc
On Thu, 23 Jan 2003, Tom Buskey wrote:
Marc Evans said:
Hello -
I am pondering the decision logic that is used to decide what processes
are started through the use of inittab versus rc scripts. It seems to me
that several of the distros have chosen to use primarily rc scripts. From
a robustness of service perspective however, it is my opinion that many of
the services that are started by rc scripts really should be managed by
the init process through the /etc/inittab file. I am looking for opinions
on the subject.
From an admin point of view, using /etc/inittab is (kindof) like using
/etc/rc.local. Imagine you have to update the startup script for a
daemon on 100 workstations. If it's in rc.local, you'll need to ensure
you don't stomp on other startup scripts embedded in it. If it's in
/etc/init.d, it'll have its own little script, nicely isolated.
Also, init.d entries usually have a nice start/stop/status mechanism.
IMO this is the best part of a SysV vs BSD environment. NetBSD also
has an /etc/init.d folder instead of putting everything in rc
rc.local.
As I have presented this to some people, I have heard the comment that the
convience of being able to run service {foo} stop would be lost by
moving items from rc scripts to inittab. To counter that, I present a
trivial perl script that can be installed in the /etc/rc.d/init.d
directory which manages the entries in /etc/inittab, producing the same
behavior as sysadmins have experienced prior to such changes.
Duplicating the effort.
You might ask, why do I care about this? Well, I have found that on rare
occasions, some of these services terminate, such as due to being out of
memory. Specifically, cron and anacron have been observed to experience
this, and unless the sysadmin is careful after the problem is corrected,
they may never get restarted. By moving these to inittab, I assert that
the system is more robust in its services.
I'd put as little as possible into inittab (and no more so). Then I'd
set up a monitor for the buggy service so I can track and be alerted
when it has problems.
Once that was set up, I'd stop looking at the symptom (stopped
services) and start looking at the problem (no enough memory, etc).
In general, part of good sysadmin practices is to put stuff in /etc/
init.d, not inittab. As a sysadmin coming to a new system, that's where
I'd look first.
I've done admin on a network of BSD systems ( 400) with everything in rc.local
and I'd rather not go back to something similar
--
---
Tom Buskey
___
gnhlug-discuss mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: init managed or rc script managed services
In a message dated: Thu, 23 Jan 2003 15:20:54 EST Marc Evans said: OK, fair enough answers. Thank you. Can I ask if your opinion changes if the system in use was an appliance, e.g. you as the owner don't know that Linux is on the inside unless you go out of your way to try to discover it? In other words, no sysadmin will ever see the contents of the inittab or rc scripts, nor be able to influance them, other then to perform a firmware upgrade to the appliance? No, I'd say the opinions expressed by Tom (which are held by me as well) remain the same. In this case though, it's not the end user who might care, but the Customer Service people, the Sales Engineers, and the QA team. Consistency is, above all else, the key component in ease of administration. If you scatter some things in init.d and others in rc.local, and still others in inittab, then you're being inconsistent, duplicating effort, and increasing the chance of error. Pick one and stick with it. Stray only when there is no possible means to accomplish your task by staying consistent. Your CS, SE, and QA people will thank you for consistency, it will make their jobs easier, thereby lessening frustration, and increasing productivity. All of which, in the long term, hopefully contribute to an increased revenue! -- Seeya, Paul -- Key fingerprint = 1660 FECC 5D21 D286 F853 E808 BB07 9239 53F1 28EE It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing, but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right! ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: init managed or rc script managed services
Marc Evans said: OK, fair enough answers. Thank you. Can I ask if your opinion changes if the system in use was an appliance, e.g. you as the owner don't know that Linux is on the inside unless you go out of your way to try to discover it? In other words, no sysadmin will ever see the contents of the inittab or rc scripts, nor be able to influance them, other then to perform a firmware upgrade to the appliance? As the owner, I don't care as long as it doesn't crash. As a service guy debugging/upgrading the firmware on hundreds of machines, I do care. -- --- Tom Buskey ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
