|
Grex > Coop11 > #249: Internet Connectivity Revisited |  |
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 176 responses total. |
jared
|
|
response 12 of 176:
| 
Apr 6 03:12 UTC 2001 |
There are some local providers that sell dsl that is provisioned through
ameritech. (instead of covad, northpoint, etc....)
Ameritech has gotten more data savvy in the past year from my
experience and sees that there is value in this space. Especially
in the days of the collapsing clecs :)
|
scg
|
|
response 13 of 176:
|
Apr 6 05:51 UTC 2001 |
re 11:
The concern is not DSL cost, but rather the continued availability of
wholesale DSL services to ISPs. Given that concern, switching to a different
Covad based provider woudln't give us any reliability advantage, and since
Rhythms appears far more unstable than Covad (why, oh why, is my employer
having a Rhythms circuit installed into my apartment next week?), switching
to a Rhythms based provider won't be very helpful either. Is Ameritech
offering the service Northpoint, Covad and Rhythms were offering to ISPs yet?
This is probably a good time to once again consider colocation. Grex isn't
really doing anything at this point that requires its own private office, and
colocation providers aren't suffering quite as badly as the DSL CLECs are at
this point.
|
carson
|
|
response 14 of 176:
|
Apr 6 06:04 UTC 2001 |
(I seem to remember the argument against colocation was ease of access,
as in "lack thereof." is that argument no longer valid?)
|
i
|
|
response 15 of 176:
|
Apr 7 12:17 UTC 2001 |
My impression is that co-location usually involves a very high rental
rate per U of rack space - we'd have to find a sweetheart deal on that
(and perhaps connectivity too) to afford it.
On access - ICNet's got a new co-lo facility downtown (A^2) with 24/7
access available.
|
scg
|
|
response 16 of 176:
|
Apr 7 23:29 UTC 2001 |
Colo space is one of those things where pricing, reliability, ease of access,
and so forth, vary considerably. It's a matter of shopping for the right
deal.
|
krj
|
|
response 17 of 176:
|
Apr 8 01:16 UTC 2001 |
A column about the DSL collapse:
http://www.upside.com/Rex_Crum/3ac9e9aa30d.html
The writer says Covad stock is down to $1.03/share, down 98%
from its 52-week peak.
|
jared
|
|
response 18 of 176:
|
Apr 15 18:30 UTC 2001 |
Yes, Ameritech is offering basically what Covad, Northpoint, Rythmns, etc..
are offering to isps. (This is my understanding after talking to someone
who is doing this with their company, etc...)
|
dpc
|
|
response 19 of 176:
|
Apr 16 20:41 UTC 2001 |
Co-location has worked out fine for M-Net. WWNet, in Livonia,
has provided us great service, and so far access has not been
a problem. Plus, the *total* cost of running M-Net has shrunk
to less than $200/mo.
|
i
|
|
response 20 of 176:
|
Apr 18 03:42 UTC 2001 |
Is your WWNet co-lo a special 501(c)3 or M-Net deal rate? How many U's
of rack space are included? What kind of bandwidth? (Etc.?)
|
jep
|
|
response 21 of 176:
|
Apr 19 20:28 UTC 2001 |
M-Net arranged a special deal with WWNet. I believe the bandwidth is
384K/sec, and that they allow M-Net one computer connected at their
office. Grex could find out more, if there's interest, by e-mailing
Rex Roof: trex@arbornet.org.
|
mdw
|
|
response 22 of 176:
|
Apr 20 02:32 UTC 2001 |
I ought to point out that m-net's needs are easily demonstrated to be
different. Firstly, m-net has no dial-in lines. Secondly, m-net has
had a history of "tolerating" fairly long outages. Thirdly, m-net's
financial picture is quite different from grex.
|
jp2
|
|
response 23 of 176:
|
Apr 20 03:35 UTC 2001 |
This response has been erased.
|
carson
|
|
response 24 of 176:
|
Apr 20 04:00 UTC 2001 |
(you mean "rents.") :P
(you really ought to spend more time thinking your responses
through.) ;)
|
scg
|
|
response 25 of 176:
|
Apr 20 07:09 UTC 2001 |
It's worth noting that colocation in many cases improves reliability, due to
more stable network connectivity and (in good colo facilities) electrical
power.
|
jp2
|
|
response 26 of 176:
|
Apr 20 13:41 UTC 2001 |
This response has been erased.
|
jep
|
|
response 27 of 176:
|
Apr 20 15:14 UTC 2001 |
M-Net had 4 available inbound lines at first when they set up with
WWNet, but reduced them recently.
re #22: M-Net's needs are different primarily *because* it's financial
situation is different. There was a time when M-Net had a lot of cash,
but that changed through unnecessarily spending some of it, and losing
contributions (partly as a result of bad spending), and for a lot of
other reasons. Fortunately for Grex, none of these things can ever
happen *here* and so Grex doesn't need to look at the possibility of
cutting it's expenses by 50-75% while dramatically improving it's
Internet connectivity.
By the way, log into M-Net and Grex in two separate windows, using their
GUI interfaces, and do a conference listing sometime to compare speeds.
You can do quite a lot of conferencing on M-Net while you're waiting for
Grex to just list the items in a conference. Try entering an item or
response on Grex, and see how many responses or items you can get
entered on M-Net while you're waiting for Grex to save one.
Grex's Backtalk interface is much nicer than WebYAPP. It'd probably be
really nice if it ran as quickly.
|
carson
|
|
response 28 of 176:
|
Apr 20 15:43 UTC 2001 |
(John's technically right. I can whip right through conferences on
M-Net because there's almost nothing worth reading.)
(that's not to say expenses wouldn't be cut by co-location. Grex
currently spends how much on the Pumpkin? $25/month? $35?)
|
scg
|
|
response 29 of 176:
|
Apr 20 15:49 UTC 2001 |
Grex's Pumpkin rent is more than that. I forget how much more. It's also
important to consider power costs, which are sometimes included in colocation
arrangemenets.
|
carson
|
|
response 30 of 176:
|
Apr 20 15:56 UTC 2001 |
(it *would* be a good idea to know what expenses might be saved by a
co-location agreement. phone lines might be the first expense to go.)
|
jp2
|
|
response 31 of 176:
|
Apr 20 16:03 UTC 2001 |
This response has been erased.
|
aruba
|
|
response 32 of 176:
|
Apr 20 16:44 UTC 2001 |
Re #28-29: Grex pays $69.46 per month to rent the Pumpkin, and $54.34 per
month for electricity.
|
gull
|
|
response 33 of 176:
|
Apr 21 03:39 UTC 2001 |
Re #31: Newer doesn't always equal better, though. How does MNet's user
load compare to Grex's? In my admittedly limited experience, newer
Intel PC-class hardware doesn't quite measure up to older Sun
server-class hardware when it comes to handling lots of users. The
Intel boxes just don't seem to handle multiple processes nearly as
well, and the hardware seems to be flimsier and more prone to
deterioration as well. There's more to system speed than how fast the
clock runs.
|
jep
|
|
response 34 of 176:
|
Apr 21 03:44 UTC 2001 |
re #28: I agree to some extent that Grex has better content. It also
has a better WWW interface, more mature and interesting user base,
better management, a better set of rules, and is more stable.
M-Net's Internet connection is far superior to Grex's, and it's hardware
runs faster than Grex's. M-Net's hardware is newer, I think it would be
replaceable off the shelf for less than Grex's would be replaceable for
used, and M-Net has more disk space. (M-Net is unlikely to have any
kind of crisis based on lack of disk space for quite a while, and
wouldn't if it maintained Grex's entire user base -- for that
matter, Grex's entire set of filesystems.)
Carson, you aren't going to insult me by berating M-Net for what it is
and what it isn't. I know that a lot better than you do. I log on to
M-Net every day. (Grex, too.) There *is*, by the way, stuff on M-Net
that's interesting -- if you're not too busy attacking it to look and
see.
|
gull
|
|
response 35 of 176:
|
Apr 21 03:47 UTC 2001 |
I just think it'd be a major expense for Grex to replace the current
hardware with something that'd be both faster and more reliable. A lot
of PC hardware (especially hard disk drives) is cheaply made for the
desktop market and would fail quickly under the kind of load Grex would
put on it. You're talking server-class multiprocessor stuff,
realistically, I would think, and that doesn't come cheap.
|
jep
|
|
response 36 of 176:
|
Apr 21 04:13 UTC 2001 |
I've heard the arguments like that ("server class" and all that), but
outages such as last summer's several weeks of downtime aren't because
of hardware problems; that was because of a hacker and a system upgrade.
Other than that, M-Net's been just as reliable as Grex over the last
decade, during which time M-Net has been running on PC hardware.
Specifically, M-Net hasn't had any disk failures that I've been aware
of, not in 10 years, but I believe Grex has had them.
|