[wplug] Pittsburgh DSL questions

[Beth Lynn]

Hello,

Do NOT go libcom. I was with them for a year of DSL misery.

Here are 10 reasons why...
1. You'd most likely be on their north hills network which is over
subscribed and very susceptible to downtime. Libcom will tell you
they are just about to "upgrade the network in that area" but they
never do.
2. They ask if you are running a "server" that they are given your
"administrator" password so that they can login any time to make
sure you are obeying the terms of service
3. When I called to ask regarding question #2, my call was "escalated"
a few times when I asked, what about ssh, does that count as a server.
Not a soul at Libcom knew what ssh is.
4. Sure, libcom dsl is a deal, if you can live with 3 days to a week
of downtime each month.
5. Your packets will drop left and right. 3% packet loss is the best
you can hope for. The president of Libcom himself told me this is 
acceptable.
6. Connection to other sites in Pittsburgh are horrid, especially
Pitt, CMU, PSC.edu, and PSU.
7. When the SQL worm bouncing around, the entire isp was down for 
10 days. Libcom's explanation was that they had installed Microsoft
SQL on some laptops that they use for internal business so they
were going to shut down until they got things under control. sheesh!
8. They say they sell SDSL up and down 512 but it never got above
128 for me. One time it got below 28.8K!
9. I sent several emails to support. All where ignored. They don't 
answer the phone when they have downtime and if something goes down
during regarding the dsl network during the weekend, oh well, you've
got to wait till Monday 10am. Oh by the way, most of the dsl outages 
would occur during the weekend.
10. They constantly blame North Pittsburgh Teleco for their problems
but they refuse to get more specific than that.

I could go on with more but you get the point. Libcom isn't worth it.
If I was given a choice of being a dial in AOL customer or libcom
dsl, I would have to go AOL.

I ended up going with Verizon DSL for the remainder of my time at that
apartment since they were going to get me up and running the quickest
and they didn't charge me for setup or modem. No contracts either.

I am leery of isps who require contracts due to the libcom ordeal.

As far as local isps
I used to have city-net for dial-in and they were good.
Nauticom would never tell me if I qualified for DSL or not.
Telerama is Linux/BSD friendly but the bandwidth slows down when the
kiddies get home from school.
Steel City Telecom is out there but I know nothing about them.
Stargate is now owned by earthlink if I'm not mistaken.

Good luck in your search!

Beth Lynn

On Sun, 15 Feb 2004, Steven Leach wrote:

> I will be moving to Observatory Hill in Pittsburgh this summer and plan 
> on getting a dsl/sdsl connection on which I will be running a Debian 
> home email and web server and eventually, most likely, my own DNS 
> server.
> 
> I've looked at various ISPs, though I haven't been able to get much 
> information on quite a few since I do not yet have a phone number and 
> therefore cannot verify availability.
> 
> What ISP(s) should I consider and/or avoid at all costs?
> 
> I will need two static IP addresses and would prefer a minimum uplink 
> and downlink speed of 384K (though if I can get a faster connection 
> without going broke......)
> 
> Libcom's pricing looks good, but also appears to be excessively 
> restrictive.   Any and all commercial activities are banned (should 
> never be an issue, but who knows?  Their definition seems extremely 
> broad and open to harsh interpretation), "servers that generate high 
> volumes of traffic and bandwidth allocations for that residential 
> circuit for extended periods of time... will result in the immediate 
> disconnection of service without refund".   Again, nothing like that 
> should ever be an issue but if they ever decide that I am somehow 
> violating any of their rules and flip the switch, my email server will 
> suddenly be dead in the water... not good.
> 
> Any information/opinions/experiences with Libcom or any other DSL 
> providers in Pittsburgh?
> 
> Anyone know about DSL availability in Observatory Hill?
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> http://homepage.mac.com/stevenaleach/
> I am not cynical.  I am not bitter.  I just believe that if you aren't 
> angry then you aren't paying enough attention.
> 
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