[wplug] DSL or higher ISP?

[Richard Farina]

Don't be sorry, you made my day.

-Rick Farina

Tom Rhodes wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:52:03 -0500
> "Brian A. Seklecki" <lavalamp at spiritual-machines.org> wrote:
>
>   
>> On Sat, 2007-12-01 at 10:41 -0500, Arenlor BloodLeaf wrote:
>>     
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>
>>> I live in Beaver Falls and am fed up with Verizon's lack of supporting
>>> customers who use Linux, no not lack of support for Linux, lack of
>>> actually giving ANY support (I had to lie to get billing support). So
>>> I'm looking for an ISP that is DSL or higher which will let me ask them
>>> why my inte
>>>       
>> Yea screw Verzion and their crappy IP backbone.  Worst BGP view out
>> there. The Westell bridges are part of the problem, but the new
>> Actiontec FIOS units really take it home.
>>
>> Penn Telecom has always been Pittsburgh's best DSL L1 provider, with
>> your choice of IP carriers or Penn-Telecom themselves (aka, Nauticom).
>>
>> They use the Paradyne Hotwire MVL Bridge/DSLAM.
>>
>> Most ISPs on the SDSL side use bridged WAN space (as opposed to some
>> stupid insanity with PPPoE).  If your ILEC is Verizon, they'll resell
>> you a brand new copper run all the way from the DSLAM to your DMARC.
>>
>> Hard code your WAN interface IP and it will run solid for years.
>>     
>
> LOL I just left Verizon after being a customer for < 24 hours.
> That entire PPPoE issue was just too much ..
>
> Support: Are you running Windows?
> Tom: No.
> Support: Are you using MacOSX?
> Tom: No.
> Support: Are you running Linux?
> Tom: Now why would I want to do that?
> Support: Sir, what operating system are you using?
> Tom: FreeBSD
> Support: Free what?  What is that?  Some sort of Linux?
> Tom: No, it's a "Unix-like" operating system.
> Support: Sir, is that like, Linux.
> Tom: No, Linux is sort of "Unix-like."  But I don't use it.
> Support: Sir, what operating system are you using.
> Tom: FreeBSD.
> Support: Sir, I don't understand, what is that.
> Tom: An operating system which, if the world had gone without, you'd
> be working hotel support right now since that is what TCP was native
> on.  NOW!  I want to speak with an engineer please.
>
> In the end, I canceled my account with them for several reasons,
> one is the entire PPPoE over DHCP (which I was told the latter
> was available and then told otherwise).  So lying was the first
> issue.  I would consider it a mistake, but two people told me
> I could use DHCP.  What would have been wrong with say "Sir, I
> don't know, let me get an engineer?"
>
> The next, having PPPoE login adds another point of network
> failure when doing diagnostics.
>
> And to use PPPoE via a shell prompt, I'd need to install more software,
> ISC dhclient comes native in *BSD, why should I install more
> software?
>
> Call it whatever you want, Verizon, in the end, it's still PPP
> just that you encapsulate frames over ATM and send them over
> Ethernet at a lower MTU (RFC says 1495 - not much different than
> 1500 but still, every little bit counts).
>
> In the end I demanded they disconnect my account.  They offered
> me a free month of service and to set up my PPPoE connection
> right there - of course, that's not what I asked.  A year of
> free service wouldn't have made me happy.
>
> The punchline - they never fully disconnected my account, I was
> billed for phone service which I asked to be canceled as well -
> I didn't need it.  I have too many cell phones as it is!
>
> So I got to spend another hour getting that disconnected and
> the bill "adjusted."  In the end, the bill was "adjusted" and
> I was owed .85.  How?  I have no clue!  Never paid for anything
> and apparently I'm owed that.
>
> Moral of the story, you can get enough for a bag of chips with
> your lunch if you just fight with Verizon.
>
> Sorry for the rant,
>
>