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| Author |
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| 25 new of 125 responses total. |
rtgreen
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response 28 of 125:
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Oct 5 04:41 UTC 1998 |
I do believe dropping the link is the right thing.
I do not know the details of the donor arrangement that made it possible
in the first place. I am assuming that there are two parts to it: the
meritech lines which we are discussing here, and the consideration of
ICnet for the bandwidth we are (would be) consuming on their subnet.
Steve is right, that we cannot expect a donor to cough up an installation
charge again. However, if the goodwill of ICnet has not forgotten us, and
would allow us to resume sending traffic through their network (and has
not already re-sold our IP addresses), it seems to me that it would not
matter if the line and modem were removed for a time.
The line on our end is just another POTS line, right? And we already
agree that we've got two too many POTS lines in the dialin pool, right?
So the way I see it is that we've got four too many lines. Three on our
end and one at the ICNet POP site. Let's drop them.
If for some reason we are forced to resort to a analog link again, we do
the following:
1) Divert one of our remaining dialin lines to the internet link.
2) Pay ICNet some consideration for using one of their normal dialin
lines temporarily.
Our longest outage to date has been four days, and I don't anticipate
Ameritech taking more than a week to get our ISDN working again,
worst-case, so I can't imagine ICNet charging us more than 1/4 of what
they charge regular customers for a full-time monthly connection. Earlier
in this thread, someone mentioned $125/mo, so worst-case, were talking
approx $30 for emergency rental of one of their dialins. We've wasted far
more than that in the time we've been arguing over this!
As for the arguments towards using the link as a parallel mail link - My
understanding is that our current modems on this link are 28.8 units, yet
Steve was talking about 33.6 with compression, so obviously he's assuming
in investing in an upgrade of sorts. If we really need the bandwidth, why
not convert the lines to ISDN? Would ICNet's goodwill be stretched thin
if we upgraded, and sent more traffic over their link than we originally
'contracted' for?
I don't know the current tariffs, but a few years ago, a friend
discovered that at business rates, an ISDN line was more expensive than a
56k 4-wire leased line. Since we're paying business rates for our phone
service, have we compared the cost of dedicated links vs. the switched
ISDN and POTS we're now using? What I'm saying here, is that if and when
we do decide that another internet link may be necessary, we might not
want to use the technology that was appropriate several years ago.
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dang
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response 29 of 125:
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Oct 5 04:53 UTC 1998 |
How far is the Mail machine from completion? I'd be semi interested in
STeve's proposal for raising 8 (actually 7 is $42, enough) memberships
in a certain amount of time, but only if we could put the mail machine
on the IC Net link in that amount of time and actually *see* if it can
handle the connections. I'm tempted to agree with scg. We couldn't
really fit our traffic through the link when we were on it, and we're
more than twice the size. Still, if we can try it, I'd be open to trying
it.
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dang
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response 30 of 125:
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Oct 5 04:55 UTC 1998 |
resp:28 slipped in. The short answer is that if we stop the connection,
the anonymous donor who is paying the $130 dollars worth of bandwidth
and IP addresses would stop, and we could never get it back. That's it.
It's not really a case of losing the phone lines and keeping the
bandwidth if we want it back, it's an all or nothing deal.
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valerie
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response 31 of 125:
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Oct 5 04:56 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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valerie
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response 32 of 125:
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Oct 5 04:56 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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scott
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response 33 of 125:
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Oct 5 10:57 UTC 1998 |
I'm starting to get a little uncomfortable with the notion that we need to
hang onto the link, since the donor would supposedly never again agree to
connect it if disconnected. Seems like we've got this sucker on the line,
and if he gets loose, he'd be gone. So why are we feeling that it is OK to
keep him (or her) hooked forever if he/she would rather not be supplying this
favor, if not bound by some promise made years ago?
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dpc
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response 34 of 125:
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Oct 5 14:37 UTC 1998 |
I agree, scott.
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scg
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response 35 of 125:
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Oct 6 05:01 UTC 1998 |
When we asked ICNet about ISDN was several years ago. ISDN pricing has
changed significantly since then, to the point where, depending on how they
have us set up, it may not cost them any more to give us an ISDN connection
than to give us a dial-up connection. Still, at what we are paying for the
connection, I'd hesitate to ask for anything that would require them to do
any work.
I would support keeping this connection if I thought it would be useful. I
don't. If somebody wanted to donate the money to keep it going I wouldn't
object too strongly to keeping it (although, since I've been maintaining
Grex's end of it, I probably wouldn't be all that quick about doing anything
with it).
I really don't see a telco problem with the ISDN line lasting longer than four
days. That was already really on the extreme side. It involved Ameritech
*losing* the trouble ticket, *twice*. I've never seen that before, and I deal
with Ameritech a lot. I was also in the middle of moving at that point, so
I didn't have time to be as persistant about it as I otherwise would have
been. An outage longer than that is certainly possible, but I would imagine
it would involve the person we're getting the ISDN connection from, rather
than involving Ameritech, and I'm assuming we would have a fair bit of
warning. We have enough people involved here working for enough different
ISPs that if we have some warning of the connection going away temporarily
it shouldn't he hard to work around that. I think in the case of an unplanned
outage that looked like it would be over soon, it would take us longer than
four days to get motivated enough to switch Grex over to a connection from
the provider other than the one we're currently using. Using a connection
from any other source, including the ICNet connection, would require changing
the IP addresses of everything on Grex's network, and changing Grex's IP
address in DNS. Changing all the IP addresses would be a major pain.
Changing the DNS stuff would be harder given our current setup, since Grex
is the primary name server for our domain names, and the other DNS servers
that secondary it are connecting to Grex by IP address to get the data.
I do agree that having a mail machine connected to the Net by some other
method is good for backup purposes. We also do need to move our primary DNS
server somewhere else, so that if something does happen to Grex or its
connection we can change DNS information easily (without that, a mail machine
to install temporarily somewhere would be pretty much useless). I also doubt
that having a mail machine that is normally in the pumpkin, on Grex's
connection, with the idea that it can be moved somewhere offsite or onto a
different connection if needed will buy us anything, because moving it
somewhere on short notice isn't something we'd be all that likely to do. It
would instead be better to have a backup mail machine sitting somewhere else,
set to accept mail for Grex if Grex's primary mail machine is unreachable.
Presumably, it also makes sense to combine this machine with the DNS machine,
which should also be offsite. I sent mail to the board and staff a few days
ago offering to host such a machine. There were a few strings attached,
basically to make sure this machine doesn't take over my life, but it
shouldn't be anything Grex couldn't live with for a machine that mostly won't
do anything. Nobody responded to that offer.
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tsty
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response 36 of 125:
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Oct 6 18:26 UTC 1998 |
i agree that we are not currently using the ic net link right now.
we didnt use the sun4 for a long time
we didnt use the 670 for a long time either.
granted, neither of those had any maintenence cost and the link does.
since this is a volunteer system adn there is a limit on the
volunteer time, it is to be expected that putting the email machine
on the ic net line is gonna take time.
what i see, rather than a push to kill the ic net link, is a push
for getting the email machine onto it ... as the next, very next,
project. once it is online, the argument goes away because we
would be getting the increased value for a ReallyCheapCost (tm).
howze about dat?
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valerie
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response 37 of 125:
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Oct 6 21:14 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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scg
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response 38 of 125:
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Oct 6 21:59 UTC 1998 |
(I really don't want to go into detail on it in public. I'm willing to
discuss it in mail)
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lilmo
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response 39 of 125:
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Oct 7 03:34 UTC 1998 |
My $.02: If there is any desire/incliniation to give the ICNet connection
another shot, let's do it NOW!!!!! Let's put an e-mail machine on it, ASAP,
and see if it can handle the load, and if it helps Grex. If not, then let's
ditch it, and be done with it. If it does help, then ask if it is worth the
money we are paying for it. If not, then let's ditch it, and be done with
it. If it is worth it, then drop the subject until someone has a legitimate
concern about it no longer being worth it b/c circumstances have changed.
I don't see any benefit to BICKERING about this any longer.
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valerie
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response 40 of 125:
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Oct 7 16:40 UTC 1998 |
This response has been erased.
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tsty
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response 41 of 125:
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Oct 9 02:17 UTC 1998 |
mdw is the best .. but notthe 'only.'
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richard
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response 42 of 125:
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Oct 12 23:09 UTC 1998 |
I dont think the board should vote to cut the ICNet link unless the
staff is unanimous in its recommendation to do so. Steve Andre seems
to be the closest thing grex has to a sysop, and if he is so strongly
opposed, that should be more than enough reason to delay any such
decisions indefintely.
Why not go ahead and cut two phone lines now, and then six months or so
from now, re-evaluate and re-consider whether you want to get back the
phone lines and get rid of ICNet. If the decision to cut ICNet cant be
reconsidered, it clearly makes sense to try the other alternative first.
cut the phone lines and see how much they are needed.
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steve
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response 43 of 125:
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Oct 13 03:20 UTC 1998 |
Thanks Richard but I'm only one many. ;-)
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lilmo
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response 44 of 125:
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Oct 14 00:22 UTC 1998 |
So, who else can do the work on the mail machine?
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dpc
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response 45 of 125:
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Oct 14 14:14 UTC 1998 |
So, has the link been dropped?
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aruba
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response 46 of 125:
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Oct 15 00:41 UTC 1998 |
I told STeve that I would be willing to discuss this for 2 weeks before
executing the board's decision. It will be two weeks tomorrow, so I will call
Ameritecch tomorrow and ask them to drop 761-8228; Valerie is the one who is
going to call ICNET and drop the other half.
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saw
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response 47 of 125:
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Oct 16 00:16 UTC 1998 |
So, it's been dropped? I don't think it should be if we can come up with
a productive use for it. If we were paying the entire connection ourselves
then I would see why, but hey, it's donated, it's cheaper than most people
would pay, so hang on to it. If we can't find a good use for it, drop it.
If it's already dropped, no use in crying over spilt milk..
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lilmo
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response 48 of 125:
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Oct 16 03:18 UTC 1998 |
I thought that there was still considerable debate about the merits.
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steve
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response 49 of 125:
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Oct 17 02:18 UTC 1998 |
There is.
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aruba
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response 50 of 125:
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Oct 17 03:15 UTC 1998 |
I called today and had Ameritech drop our 761-8228 number, which is the one
we have been using to connect to ICNET. As stated earlier, the board made
the unanimous decision to do that last month, and it seems clear from this
item that none of the board members have changed their minds. I concluded
that I would be derelict if I waited any longer to implement the decision.
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janc
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response 51 of 125:
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Oct 17 06:22 UTC 1998 |
I think Grex needs to look for better net connectivity. Not that what
we have is bad or insufficient for our current needs, but our needs are
going to grow. I expect demand for dial-ins will be very gradually
declining over the next few years, which will free up some money to do
better internet connectivity. We should be looking around for good
deals, and for people willing to donate connectivity.
I do not see the old 28.8K link as fitting into this. Yes, if someone
got off their butts and did some work, they might be able to put the
thing to some kind of use, but if someone is going to get off their
butts and do some work, then a much more sensible thing to be doing
would be to try to drum up a second ISDN connection or some such. It
just doesn't make sense for us invest our money and labor in doing
something with such obsolete technology. We aren't limited to that.
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scott
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response 52 of 125:
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Oct 17 11:27 UTC 1998 |
(Depending on the definition of "unanimous"... the vote had one absence and
one abstention. Still, everyone on Board has since said they were in favor)
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