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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 184 responses total. |
jep
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response 50 of 184:
| 
Jul 26 02:11 UTC 2003 |
I'm glad you've gone ahead and done all this checking, Mary.
Are there competitors to OTC in Ann Arbor?
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i
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response 51 of 184:
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Jul 26 02:34 UTC 2003 |
We use ICNet at work to co-lo servers (downtown A^2). Roughly speaking,
it sounds like OTC is fancier service at fancier prices than ICNet.
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aruba
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response 52 of 184:
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Jul 26 13:04 UTC 2003 |
Could we keep our 761-3000 phone number?
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devnull
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response 53 of 184:
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Jul 27 03:53 UTC 2003 |
It might be worth finding out the price of both a full rack and a third of
a rack. That would help with making decisions about how much value there
is to getting hardware that uses rack space efficiently.
It might be interesting to know the prices for .125 Mbs or so (which is roughly
ISDN), and for .5 Mbs, and for 1.5 Mbs. (Is the DSL currently used by grex
.5Mbs in each direction?) But maybe we already have enough numbers to sort
that out.
Do we have a clear picture of whether we could afford to spend more on
rent and network connectivity?
Would the modem line cross-connect be handled using a 25 pair cable from
the demarc point to grex's rack, or by installing the exact number of
anticipated lines needed, or what? (This mostly becomes an issue if there
is ever a desire in the future to add more lines.)
Is there cost-effective server-side 56k modem hardware that will interface
with an ISDN BRI these days? If so, upgrading from analog phone lines might
make sense.
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mary
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response 54 of 184:
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Jul 27 14:30 UTC 2003 |
I'll add the space and speed questions to the list. Thanks.
I think Ameritech would be the one to tell us whether
our 761-3000 is portable. I'll do anything not to have
to call Ameritech.
I doubt we'll ever need to increase phone lines past
what we ask for initially. But who knows. I'll ask about
the demarc point. I suspect we'd simply get fed the
number of lines we request and adding more would mean
going back to the building's demarc.
Regarding whether we can afford something like this.
My personal opinion is if we can't affort it now, meaning,
pay the monthly fees without going into reserves, then
we shouldn't be doing it. I wouldn't support any
increase in service which would be dependent on faith
that money would follow.
Re: Jep's question up there I've not contacted any
other co-lo as yet. If someone knows of one that
might fit the bill, please mention it here, and eventually
I'll get around to calling them. But I thought I'd first
go through the process of collecting all the appropriate
questions and getting a useful bid. Then we ask the
next company the same questions and compare apples to
apples.
Too, I kind of gave myself this job, not asking for permission
from anyone. If someone else would rather take this on,
maybe someone with more technical expertise, I'd think
that would be very appropriate and I'd not have a single
hurt feeling. :-)
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keesan
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response 55 of 184:
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Jul 27 15:22 UTC 2003 |
You don't have to contact Ameritech Mary, they are now SBC.
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scg
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response 56 of 184:
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Jul 27 22:13 UTC 2003 |
Ann Arbor has two phone company central offices, and unless something has
changed very recently, phone numbers can't be moved between the two. However,
phone numbers can be moved anywhere that stays connected to the same central
office.
734 761 is off of Ann Arbor Main (ANARMIMN), which covers everywhere in Ann
Arbor except the Southeast corner, and much of the surrounding countryside.
It looks from Online Technology's website as if they're in what used to be
the ITI building. Is that correct? If so, it should be in the area covered
by Ann Arbor Main, and 734 761 should be portable there.
I'm not sure contacting SBC would be an improvement over contacting Ameritech.
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dcat
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response 57 of 184:
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Jul 28 01:23 UTC 2003 |
re SBC vs. Ameritech: as the ads they ran when they changed the name over
said, "New name, Same Bloated Company" . . . .
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gelinas
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response 58 of 184:
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Jul 28 03:02 UTC 2003 |
OTC used to be the ITI building, but now they are in a building near the
Kroger that became a Busch's, near the hotel with the Guy Hollerins bar.
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scg
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response 59 of 184:
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Jul 28 06:13 UTC 2003 |
I think I'm several years out of date on my Ann Arbor strip malls.
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spooked
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response 60 of 184:
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Jul 28 09:08 UTC 2003 |
*grins*
Strip malls? Does that mean strip joints/clubs? I can never work out
what people see in them...
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scott
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response 61 of 184:
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Jul 28 11:43 UTC 2003 |
No, strip malls are those long buildings full of stores alongside a major
road.
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gelinas
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response 62 of 184:
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Jul 28 13:08 UTC 2003 |
OTC is off Green Road, south of Plymouth, behind the Plymouth-Green shopping
center.
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spooked
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response 63 of 184:
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Jul 29 00:02 UTC 2003 |
Okay, thanks for the translation, Scott :)
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devnull
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response 64 of 184:
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Aug 4 02:21 UTC 2003 |
I've not been paying careful attention to grex's finances, but it seems like
there's been a significant increase in money in the bank in the last couple
years. I know that some of this reflects the hardware fund and hasn't
been spent yet, but I think grex has been running a bit of a surplus if you
take that amount out.
I agree that it would be wrong to decide to spend money on the basis of wishful
thinking that more money will come, but it is also difficult to feel inspired
to donate money to an ever growing surplus in the bank. It would be worth
figuring things out far enough to be able to say ``we can do <foo> if we
raise an additional $50/mo'' and then people can evaluate whether the <foo>
inspires them to pledge money towards that.
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aruba
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response 65 of 184:
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Aug 4 03:36 UTC 2003 |
You're mistaken, Joel. At the beginning of August, 2001 we had $4,634.80
in the bank, and currently we have $4,591.15. So there has been no
surplus over the last two years, and in fact a small deficit. Our
membership was steady at about 90-100 from 1995 through the end of 2001,
but last year it dropped to about 80, and it's been between 75 and 85
since.
Last year was a rough year; we finished about $800 below where we started.
I'm hoping this year will be better - we cut a phone line to reduce
costs near the end of last year, and when our Centrex contract runs out
this fall we should be able to cut some more.
You can find all the treasurer's reports since 1993 in ~aruba/reports.
~aruba/reports/2002.txt is a summary report for 2002.
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carson
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response 66 of 184:
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Aug 5 04:21 UTC 2003 |
(I think devnull's second paragraph is still right on the money, so to
speak. While it's great that we've been able to cut expenses as
membership levels have declined, it wouldn't hurt to say, "if we had
X amount of members, we could afford to do Y." Goals are good; we should
have them.)
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gelinas
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response 67 of 184:
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Aug 5 04:24 UTC 2003 |
Co-location may be that goal. :)
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carson
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response 68 of 184:
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Aug 5 04:31 UTC 2003 |
(you mean "if we co-locate, we can do without Z members?")
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gelinas
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response 69 of 184:
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Aug 5 04:32 UTC 2003 |
No, I don't; I expect colocation to cost us more. At least partially because
we'll be able to do more.
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mary
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response 70 of 184:
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Aug 6 13:06 UTC 2003 |
I heard back from OTC and the news is not good if the
estimate of what we'll need is accurate.
Bid Specifications:
- 2 servers
- 5 IP addresses
- 0.5000 mbps connection
- 1/2 rack (20u) of space
- all the other stuff mentioned in #0
Monthly fee: $1,077
Anyhow, I thanked him for his time and the offer
and explained how this is a little rich for our
shoestring 501(c)(3) budget. The door was left
open to fine tune the numbers if we find out
our space needs aren't quite this large.
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aruba
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response 71 of 184:
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Aug 6 15:42 UTC 2003 |
Thanks for all your work on this, Mary. Was it the space that pushed the
numbers up so high, do you think?
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cross
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response 72 of 184:
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Aug 6 16:07 UTC 2003 |
Undoubtedly. If grex could squeeze into 3U or 4U of space, it could
probably afford it. Unfortunately, none of our current servers are in
rackmount cases.
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mary
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response 73 of 184:
|
Aug 6 18:46 UTC 2003 |
Space is expensive.
The bid for 1u with 1 IP address, one server and the
same bandwidth came in at $269 per month.
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cross
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response 74 of 184:
|
Aug 6 20:13 UTC 2003 |
I'm interested; what would be the price for 4U of space and 2 IP addresses?
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