MediaOne dns problems

[David Kramer]

Randall Hofland wrote:
> 
> Gee, then I look forward to the day when I get broadband for free (or almost
> so) with the usual hassles as free dialup and can pay just $30-40 a month to
> have a decently fast fixed IP service. I have a hard time understanding why

If you read the latest issue of Wired, they are backpedaling and saying
net access is going to get MORE expensive, not less.  POTS dialup was
cheap because it rides on old, existing hardware, and the bandwidth was
low enough that they could eat the price of the bits.  Niether of these
are true for broadband/DSL.


> "broadband" at 3-5 times the cost of my current $10 a month unlimited dial up
> service should have the same crappy level of service as my dialup sometimes
> does. Maybe we are just expecting too little and getting what we deserve, just
> as we do with the POTS and all of the other government regulated services that
> enjoy monopoly powers and government style service.

You put your finger right on it.  The service level we are getting has
nothing to do with technology and everything to do with it being offered
by old-style-phone-company-like (mon|oligop)olies.  "We're
(ATT|Verizon).  We don't care.  We don't have to.  We just merged with
all the meaningful competition, and deny access to our hardware and
networks to the remaining scrappers."

> > Hey folks, you're not *paying* for a static IP address or even DNS
> > service.  What do you expect?  For $30-$50/mo you're only supposed to be
> > surfing the web, not serving it.  Their renumbering/DNS issues have no
> > effect (besides a minute of downtime) on the service provided to a
> > surfer-only.

I fully agree.  I'm not complaining about being renumbered.  I am
thankful that I have only been renumbered about 4 times in 2.5-3 years. 
What is inexcusable is THEIR OWN NAMESERVERS not being updated for >1.5
days.  That's just not having your act together.  It's typing the one
right command on the one right DNS box.

Just a minor correction, though.  There are services out there that will
not be accessible to clients whose DNS and reverse DNS do not agree. 
And there is nothing in their policy against conecting to VPN's which
usually require a somewhat stable IP.

> > Their bandwidth isn't unlimited, so if it gets chewed up by home-grown
> > servers then they'll have to deploy more facilities, raising the cost for
> > everyone.  If the technology was in place I wouldn't be surprised if they
> > changed your IP/DNS daily.

But my bandwidth demands are actually quite low.  I offer services on my
server, but it's not like I'm getting 1500 hits a day.  Your average
3l33t |-|akR downloading PRON is prolly using up 10x my bandwidth.  It's
the constant connection I need.  Sure the speed is nice, but I wouldn't
care if my uplink was 100K instead of 300K.

> > If you want to serve, try SDSL, or maybe co-locate.  Maybe BLU members
> > could organize to share a co-located server, splitting the
> > costs/resources, thereby bringing the price down to something manageable?

Since a large part of the reason I run my own server is as a learning
experience. I need the ability to make it crash in horrible, billowing,
dark green smoke and flames without having someone else hit me over the
head with a 2x4.  If we all got a fairly fast link on a good box, and
only put stuff on there once it was working, that could work.  I would
certainly go in on that.  I'm sure we could divvy up the admin duties
fairly.

Of course we would all have to agree on a Linux distribution   ;)
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