Linux friendly local ISP?

[David]

Monty:

Is two-pair all they buried?  Yes and no.

When I bought the place back in '95 there was apparently two pair in the 
ground.  When I ordered two voice lines, the second didn't work.  SWBell 
guy came out, determined that line 1 was using tip/tip from the two 
different pairs, rather than tip/ring from one pair (classic "split pair" 
case), and determined it would be best to just run new cable (I think he 
determined that one of the ring wires was bad).  All he had on his truck 
was aerial cable, so he said he'd hook me up with that, leave it laying on 
the ground, and order a new 2-pair buriable cable to be put in.  About two 
weeks later that aerial cable was "gone" and I could see where they'd 
buried some cable.  So now there are 4 pairs in the ground, in two 
different runs.

Couple months later my phones start acting flaky.  Turns out they'd just 
buried the aerial cable, rather than running cable suitable for 
burying.  So new buried cable goes in.  Six pair, in three runs now in the 
ground.  Two pair in use.

Later, SWB elects to put in a new major feeder cable into my neighborhood, 
and in the process replace two older pedestals (which due to a fence 
installed were on opposite sides of the fence!) with one.  Oh, and they'd 
just run a new set of cables to everyone's house, too.  So now eight pairs 
in four runs in the ground, two pair in use.

Then I get Sprint ION installed.  Need a new pair for that.  I'm pretty 
sure they put in a new cable for that, which was presumably a two-pair 
cable.  So now ten pairs, in five runs, three pairs in use (I had not yet 
"ported" my old phones to SWB, so they were running as well).

Later I do port to ION, so I have ten pairs, one in use.

ION goes the way of the dodo, and I'm now back to my old SWB voice 
pairs.  So ten pairs in the ground in five runs, two pair in use.  So with 
ten pair in the ground feeding the house, I use a cable modem. :^)

FYI, when re-running my telco cable from the NID (replacing old 
red/green,yellow/black cable), I pulled two cat-5 cables from the NID to my 
furnace room, which has also become my "wiring closet".  One of the cat-5's 
carries the signals from the NID to my "wiring closet".  The other CAT5 I 
use to feed from my wiring closet back to a phone in the garage (where the 
NID is).  I've put in a nest of cabling such that I now have two CAT5 runs 
to several places in the house - one for voice (supporting up to four 
separate lines) and one for Ethernet.  All are "home runs" back to my 
wiring closet.  I also have one "legacy" run in the wiring closet that's 
all the original telephone wiring which feeds a couple places where I can't 
get new cable without tearing up walls.  CATV goes in and out of my wiring 
closet, too, so my cable modem lives there, too (much better than having to 
have it near the computer).

David