On Sun, 2005-03-06 at 23:47 +0000, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: Here in Norway it's quite varied. Bluecom is a geek's favorite, offering very reasonable static IP prices (about $100/year) and stable net connections (3mbit down, 640kbit up = 70-80 ameridollars/month). I'm concidering getting that one. However, as the old saying goes, the only secure computer is the one completely disconnected from any network. That is why I recommend Telenor ADSL. :) -- Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe at ifi.uio.no>

On Sun, 2005-03-06 at 19:52 -0500, Paul Koning wrote: Heh. I was unsure about the whole static IP thing, but some ISPs (bluecom, I have found out through conversation, is not one) enjoy changing your IP down to every 10 minutes or something utterly rediculous like that. The reason is that I want to make a multi-system public access network of emulated machines. VMS, early UNIX, early (211/29) BSD, OS/360, and some other things. But that turned out to be a non-issue, as Bluecom doesn't really like switching your IP. Bluecom, as is most ISPs, is actually ADSL (or SDSL for businesses). In fact, here in Norway, cable net is the crap service (mostly because of a crap company holding the monopoly. In the start phase, their tech support had over two hour waits when things broke (and break they did, frequently) -- Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe at ifi.uio.no>

On Sun, 2005-03-06 at 23:47 +0000, Gordon JC Pearce wrote: <rant> Hmm. My NTL cable crapped out weekend before last and started dropping 50% of packets. Then it worked for 5 days, then started doing the same again on Friday. Saturday the link was totally dead apart from 5 minutes where it came back, Sunday it actually came back properly for 3 hours or so, then did an hour of dropping 50% of data again, then fell over completely. This morning it's up and running 100% again, but I don't know for how long. I'd expect a big company like NTL to have all sort of network monitoring to detect this kind of thing and replace hardware at the first sign of trouble (asking around, it's not just me and is affecting a fairly wide area). Unless they *do* have network monitoring and some monkey's been sat in a room to hit the reboot button when it gets over 50% data loss, because they can't be bothered replacing whatever's broken. Would explain weekends being worse too as said monkey is probably too drunk / hungover to hit the switch. Grrr. Oh to have a BT phone line (rather than an NTL one) so that I could change ISPs! (all ADSL vendors in the UK make it a condition of service that you have to rent a BT phone line before you can use their offering) </rant> Ah, that feels a little better! :) J.