[geeks] Why I hate Verizon Online

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 01:13:58PM -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> The protocols are all the same regardless of OS, so it should not matter
> at all.
> 
> In fact, it is generally easier and less trouble to connect almost
> anything except Windows.

Here in Israel, we have similar problems. BEZEQ, the telephone company
was spun off from the post office around 1995. At that time, the private
usage of Internet was allowed. Before then only Universities could access
the Internet. As part of the deal, BEZEQ is not allowed to be an ISP.

You must buy your Internet access from a LICENSED ISP. At one time the
licenses were easy to get, now they are almost impossible. The big companies
have bought out all the little ones, so you can't buy a small one just for
its license.

Therefore you must use a tunnel aka VPN to access the Internet for broadband
connections. Here they are called "dialers". Dialers operate on Windows only.
If you buy an aDSL connection from BEZEQ they will only support dialers and
Windows for the base price. If you want to use a Macintosh, you are on your own,
if you use a router, you can either pay them $2 a month extra for support,
so they can fund having a person who can figure out what to do, or you
can set up a "dialer" with your windows computer to test it.

HOT (that is their name, using English letters, not Hebrew), the local cable
company is a little better. BEZEQ runs their aDSL connections as a switched
public network, so you have to tunnel, HOT does not and if your ISP agrees
to it and you can get someone clueful enough to understand you can use
MPLS, which is in effect a DHCP Ethernet connection from your cable modem.

It's usually better to call your ISP for support as they are better trained.

Since I have a 5m/256k cable modem, I have what is called "business class"
service which gives me support from people who know what they are doing and
expect the person on the other end to be using a router instead of a "dialer".

It's not cheap, about $70 a month, split between the cable company and my ISP.

The cheaper connections have usage caps, around 3g a month, with hefty
"fines" if you go beyond it. 

My account does not have a usage cap, and there have been days where I've
downloaded several gigs. From the local Israeli mirror, which is slowed
down because it is not on my ISP, I can download a full CD in 1/2 hour.
This only works after midnight, because the connection between ISP's gets
clogged. One day I decided to update my Ubuntu collection and downloaded
6 CD images after midnight, around 4g. By the time I got up at 7am,
they were here.

>From the U.S. I get nowhere near that speed. Sometimes, I can't even keep
a VoIP stream going. It's not a local problem, I have fairly sophisticated
QOS routing and it works. :-)

Geoff.


-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (07)-7424-1667  Fax ONLY: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838 
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