ISP's

[T. Margrave]

Well I have posted this question before and never seen this activity on it.
I started out on uit.net (2yrs)which went under and kc1.net(1.5yrs) bought
them.  KC1.net also had problems and sold their customers to
primary.net(2yrs).  Primary.net has just been acquired by mPower.net.  Too
soon to tell how mPower will change things.   Primary has had problems with
support.  Not getting back to me on issues,  changing modern protocols with
out informing me.  The best thing is tell me that they are working on the
main line which I get 50- 40k connections and it should be back up in one to
two days ( 6 months ago).  Now I get 33 - 21k connections.

Yes,  I could go cable or DSL but I am moving soon and I do not want to was
the time getting it installed.

The QNI story is different from what I have heard.  QNI was a sweat shop for
newbies on the help line.  There was one person that I new that was not a
newbie and he told me that they did not know which way was up.  What killed
QNI from what I heard was Lighting to the main server and the tape back up
was on that server with the only tape in it. (So what does that tell you
when somebody says they are backing up their servers).

Sound.net I have always heard mix opinions about.  A lot of them are from
old Tyrell customer holding sound.net responsible for Tyrell.   I have heard
that Sound net is run by a retired KC Cop.  The Sound net started out as a
BBS and moved from there.  I have seen the owner once and his tech support.
I can not say it great support or real poor.  My mother has been with them
for years (5+ I think) and she is happy with them except for sound net
policing her web site for net traffic.

I would ask an ISP several questions before signing up again with them and I
will have to ask them when I move to my new location on the east coast.
Questions:
1. support hours
2. Number of lines in
3.  modem to user ratio.  ( sometimes hard to get)
4. do they back up the servers and do they store them back ups off site.
5. How many people do they have working for them
6. How long have they(ISP) been in business.  (some ISP will start up cheap
go under and sell their customers to another ISP, which happens to be the
same people as before with higher rates)

There are more but I can not remember them now but I know somebody would be
more than happy to add them to this list.

Tom Margrave
Now for the sales pitch check out
www.starbase.com for development tools.

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Cox <michael.cox at honeywell.com>
To: <kclug at kclug.org>
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 6:43 AM
Subject: Re: ISP's

> I've had about three local ISP's in the last ten years...by far the
longest
> lasting has been QNI (now http://www.primary.net).  Fairly low user/modm
ratio,
> good tech support (at least in the QNI days...I don't know if that's
changed
> with the primary.net take-over...haven't needed to call).  They even had
SWB
> change out a switchbox  when I was getting spurious disconnects.  No
> complaints.  Both the Linux box and the Newton connect fine.  (No
non-local
> access number for vacations, though...bummer)
>
> A friend has kcinter.net, and I can just about figure there's a thirty
percent
> change that my mail to him will bounce with an "unknown user." :(
>
> Haven't heard any complaints from friends using blitz-it.
>
>
>