I must admit I am very intrigued by the 802.11g wireless service starting to be offered by some local Internet service providers. I believe the service offerings are comparably priced to high-speed DSL and cable modem. If I my neighbor a few houses away didn't have a huge tree blocking blocking my few of the Coburg Hills, I'd probably be using wireless today. The local ISPs are mostly using work of mouth advertising, so you may have to make a couple of inquires. I know of at least two local providers and I suspect there are more. Ask around. [Circa $50-$60/mo for service].
I dislike the idea renting a pair of copper wires in the ground from a company based outside of the local area. The wireless angle allows me to thumb my nose at Qwest for not investing in my neighborhood telecomm infrastructure.
If I lived closer to a the telephone central office, I'd consider at the Qwest "bring your own ISP" offering so I could run a webserver at home on a fast connection. At last check, this package is not bandwidth throttled nor limited by the typical usage limitations [allow servers]. Most ISP's do not permit one to run servers at home as they must pay bandwidth charges incurred by traffic coming/going over their Internet uplink. If you are interested in Linux and/or you are a power-user that wants to run your own services, this might be ideal for you.
An nice side-benefit of the bring-your-own-ISP is that you can continue supporting EFN and OPN. The cost of providing the base-network connectivity [dialup ports/DSL Qwest charges, uplink bandwidth, etc] is an overwhelmingly huge portion of the expense is providing your ISP service. I expect the EFN technical and support infrastructure changes currently in shakedown should satisfactorily address any lingering historical concerns.
Since I'm not particularly interested in cable TV, the cable modem (data only) rates offered by Comcast aren't particularly attractive to me as a consumer. I was paying about $55-60/mo for data only with Comcast locally a year or so ago. The cable TV + data combination discounts bring the month recurring costs down to merely ridiculous.
Don't forget, you earn good karma points and keep some of your money local by working with a local ISP. Everything be equal, I would rather support my neighbors and encourage others to do likewise.
Let me know if this helped your brainstorming for options.
Opinions are my own and will not necessarily work in anyone else's reality or circumstances. Some of the cost estimates may no longer be accurate. Not available is all areas. Consult your own tarot cards before... [Insert standard disclaimer here.]
--Howard Fredericks
On Jun 19, 2004, at 4:14 PM, Kenneth Silverman wrote:
hey guys so i'm researching for high speed. what's everybody using and how much? i'm looking for the best deal, of course, and it'd be good if they'd host my website too. i'd like to think i'm staying with efn but i'm not sure what to do so once my dues expire end of sept then maybe i'm moving on....let me know.....ken
Ken Silverman
541 343 0912
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://members.efn.org/~hapilife/
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