> Find another ISP. I have no sympathy for you. You are choosing to stay
> with an ISP who is providing you with less service than you want (by not
> providing a reverse lookup). Choose with your dollars.
I haven't asked for a reverse lookup, I haven't needed to worry about it.
I have a static IP address which happens to be chosen by my provider, and
fits the "pattern" of a dialup. It resolves fine both ways. My ISP
allows me to send and receive packets on any ports I want, and has
reasonably good connectivity. That's what's important.
> DSL connections are (at least in our case) more or less "nailed up."
> Just like our T1 customers, we aren't worried about these people spamming
> through our network, and we allow them direct outside access. They have
> a financial incentive not to spam since it would void their contractual
> agreements.
That may be true today. However, the push is to make DSL more
standardized. A year or two from now, it's likely that you'll buy an
off-the-shelf DSL modem and get DSL service from your telco, allowing you
to switch ISPs almost as easily as you can switch ISPs with analog dialups
today.
> If there were a real need for people to send outbound email directly to
> their recipients, I'm sure we would offer such a service, and I'm sure
> we'd have a contract restricting use appropriately. The simple fact is
> that there is no such need, beyond people wanting to "play" with their
> mail setup. Oddly enough, these people who "play" whine that they can
> handle mail better than their ISP. This seems to be a contradiction in
> terms, and of course ignores the fact that we don't make our money
> selling services to people who want to "play" on the Internet.
Actually, I make a living as a part-time administrator/consultant for
various ISPs (among other things). Setting up and fixing mail servers is
part of what I do. My consulting company and another web design firm
share a LAN and a high-speed link. I'm working on moving the web
company's email in-house because their ISP (which is separate from the
provider providing us access) is not as reliable as what I can provide
them locally. My connectivity provider gives me several static IP
addresses and routes my packets, that's all I really want from them. I
have no desire or reason to use their servers at all.
I believe there will soon be a large number of SOHO/home LANs coming
online via DSL or cablemodem links. If you assume that everyone at the
far end of the wire is just a "whiner" who wants to "play" on the
Internet, your ISP is probably going to be missing out on a rather large
market. Or are you one of those misguided folks who somehow believes that
a "business" vs. "home" DSL/cablemodem setup should be a separate product
that costs significantly more?
- Mike
