I've had the same ISP (meer.net) for like 13 years, because it was started by some former coworkers. This used to mean there was a high level of cluefulness and reliability, but lately, not so much. About every three months I get some new variant of what happened again today: "Hey, how about we re-number our mail server without telling you so that your firewall is now wrong!" "Oh, and once you figure out what we did, how about the new server says 'relaying denied' at you, how would that be?"
I had to route around them by drafting a machine I have at a different ISP into service as a mail relay. WTF.
I think they're trying to drive me into the arms of Comcast.
Comcast won't be any better.
I suspect meer.net is still your best option for reliability short of becoming your own sysadmin again.
meer.net just forced us to change telcos (to one of the larger, lamer companies; F can tell you the name), and to change from SDSL to ADSL. The performance is just not as good anymore, and it is sad.
Yeah, me too, but I think I'm still SDSL, and I haven't noticed a performance drop. (Meer used to use Covad for transport but run their own backhaul, but now they're reselling Covad's bandwidth instead.)
Since we had to change anyway, we went to the ADSL option because it was (supposedly) faster, and definitely cheaper. It's not worth it.
Oh, and they don't give you a /29 block, they give you five random IPs.
/29's require updating whois records. It's a pain in the ass for the company doing it.
Five /32's, however, do not.
Been there, done that. My ISP was started by a friend from university, and they were great. Then the lure of money became too much, so he took his 8 figure offer, and sold up to Pipex, who in turn have been bought out by Tiscali, and the service is now crap. I need a new ISP :-(
When you switch to Comcast, you will have to listen to a George in Bangalore telling you that you have to turn of fluorescent lamps because they interfere with connection; that you have to reboot your computer every time you call, that you should use Windows Vista; and every time they switch you to another guy up the ladder you'll have to repeat your mother's maiden name (probably if you choose a name like "om", it'd be more helpful).
You need a view of the Berkeley hills, but a friend of mine was very happy with:
http://www.unwiredltd.com/consumer.php
Or at least he has not commented beyond that they call him if he pulls the power for any length of time, and his vpn connection (work from home sysadmin) works very nicely. He has the $89/month 6mbps symmetrical.
If something is worth doing, it's worth doing yourself.
confuse not "worth having" with "worth doing".
worth having: "reliable postal mail delivery"
not worth doing: "being a postal worker"
worth having: "a tasty steak dinner"
not worth doing: "raising and butchering a cow"
Devon, there are times when you are extraordinarily perceptive. This is one of those times.
Please reveal to us your secret for turning sunlight directly into amino acids & nucleotides.
I use paid account at http://fastmail.fm for my mail relay
I've been pimping sonic.net and Raw Bandwidth for a bit.
Sonic.net is large and very well run.
Raw Bandwidth is small and well run as well.
I think sonic.net has more BW options...
I've been using pobox.com for 10 years, but I don't run my own mail server at all.
Useless post is useless.