[semi-OT] alternatives to FairPoint in Nashua?

Ben Scott dragonhawk at gmail.com
Mon Dec 7 02:08:19 EST 2009


On Mon, Dec 7, 2009 at 1:18 AM, Arc Riley <arcriley at gmail.com> wrote:
> +1 on comcast business class being awful.

  Er, messages in thread so far seem to suggest people are saying
they're marginally okay.  Not great, but not awful.

> "business class" cable modems blowing out in lightning storms

  I can't speak to most of what you wrote about, but lightning is
going to blow up just about anything, whether it's "business class" or
not.  I've seen lightning fry circuits that were nominally
disconnected.  It jumps through miles of *air*; normal rules don't
apply.

  Taking a week to get you a modem doesn't seem surprising to me,
since they insist on doing a truck roll for damn near everything.  Not
justified, but also not surprising.

  (Anecdote: Side client with Comcast voice phone, maybe 6 months ago.
 The CPE Comcast uses for this has two telephone jacks, for one or two
lines.  We wanted to add the second line.  They demanded a truck roll.
 When he got there, all the tech did was call somebody on his cell and
give them the WO#.  Jack activated remotely.  Sheesh.  On the plus
side, it's pretty easy to get them to waive the fees, but the hassle
alone is ridiculous.)

  At work, Comcast did go out for a few days last year in the big ice
storm.  I didn't even bother calling in; I knew they'd be swamped.
After a few days it came back.

  We've had the same single static IP address at work for about two
years now.  I wouldn't count on it to never change, though.  Like I
said, we have multiple feeds.  :)

> ... taking the liberty to add themselves user accounts with sudo access ...

  This I have trouble believing, just because none of the pole monkeys
they've sent out seemed to quite know what to do with a computer at
all.  Indeed, things such as the English language often seem to be a
struggle for them.  It seems astounding to hear one of them knew
enough to exploit an unattended root shell!  ;-)

-- Ben


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