[SunRescue] re: [OT] Reliable net access in the boonies

[Bill Bradford]

> The problems here is that you have to be THIS TALL to ride. Yea, if you
> aren't fairly technical you aren't allowed to join. And the other problem
> is there's really no one you can yell at if things are messed up. Yes, it
> will get fixed, but there's work and then there's play.

One of the local companies (Quadralay) had a similar deal a couple of years
ago.  They have a T1 to UT/TheNet.  Also, they had (dont know if they still
do this) a full ISDN PRI (24 lines) for employee home dialup, which then
connected through the T1 to UT for Internet access.

However, they only had about 5 or so employees that were "dialing up" with
their ISDN from home - so their sysadmin worked out a deal with some of
the tech-savy guys in town who needed access (me included, right after I
left texas.net and lost my dedicated line through there), and sold us 
64K dedicated (burstable to 128 for short periods) channels plus small
subnets for $50/month.  This was a GREAT deal in 1998.  However, no
tech support, no "guaranteed" connection, no mail, no news, no web -
but it was great if all you needed was a connection of some sort.

I kept my access through there for a year or so, then went cablemodem
for six months after getting a house - then went ADSL, which I've had
for almost two years now.

Tip: NEVER GET YOUR HOME CONNECTION FOR FREE FROM YOUR EMPLOYER - no 
matter how good you are in with them, etc - there stands the chance 
that one day you'll find yourself fired/quit and without that connection
you depended on for so long.  I could get free DSL from more than one
ISP around here in exchange for sysadmin work - but I choose to pay 
my $80/month (1.5 meg down, 128K up, 10 static IPs) for mine.

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
mrbill at mrbill.net
Austin, TX