[MLB-WIRELESS] [OT] 1.5Mbit/sec DSL providers

[Craig Sanders]

On Tue, Nov 02, 2004 at 11:33:55PM +1100, Rowan Crowe wrote:
> They'll also have an SLA which will mean I get credited for those
> #@$*# Telstra outages (hopefully)

yeah, there's been a few lately. that's what happens with privatisation,
they don't bother doing preventative maintainence any more, they just
react when things break.

my whole street (and maybe more of the surrounding suburb) had no phone lines
for two days from wednesday last week. when i rang to report the fault, they
said it would be fixed "by tomorrow". the next day they rang my mobile and told
me it would take a week to fix, as the rains had caused a main cable here in
coburg to break.  i said that this was absurd, that this should not happen in
inner-suburban melbourne. he said that it was impossible to fix it any quicker
as it took time to get council permits etc to dig it up and replace it....then
later, contradicting himself, said that if i had paid for a business line, it
would be fixed within 24 hours.  they ended up fixing it on friday.

as i write, my adsl phone line has been down again since about 5.30 this
morning.

odd co-incidence that. both times the lines have gone down have been
when it's raining heavily. are our phone lines so badly maintained under
a semi-privatised telstra that a bit of rain can take them out?

back in the old days, you'd always see telecom techs in their little
tents working on stuff in the pits. you never see that now. they don't
bother doing any preventative maintainence any more.


> How does isp.net.au route the /24 - through a tunnel or another way? I
> presume the 1500/256 product is on Telstra DSL?

pppoe connects and gets assigned an address from my /24.  isp.net.au route
the rest of my /24 to that address.

> > isp.net.au don't have a flat-rate 1500/256 plan. they have a 30GB
> > 1500/256 plan with static IP for $145/month, and about 10c/meg for
> > excess.
>
> That's plenty. I currently use 2-3Gb per month.

i use a bit more than that since i mirror debian....but that should be free
traffic for them since i mirror it from a site at the peering exchange.


> My main reason for wanting flat rate is to ensure there are no
> surprises at the next bill, since I don't actively monitor my usage.

me too.


> I still have vague plans to offer my 'excess' gigs to local people who
> are able to associate with my AP, at no cost to them. It will be a fun
> technical project, but I'm still not sure how well it's going to work
> - especially when the consumers are getting something for free!

i couldn't do that.  i need responsive ssh sessions, and response times go down
the drain when someone's downloading large files.  it's really annoying to be
working on a box on the other side of the world and suddenly find that there
are 30 second delays between each keystroke as your tiny ssh packets try to
squeeze in between lots of huge ftp or http packets.  i'm not paying for
massive download limits, i'm paying for a fast and responsive link when i need
it.

one of these days i'll look into the QoS scheduler stuff and prioritise port 22
(ssh) traffic above everything else.  i don't care how long a download takes,
but i do care about ssh.....but even QoS can't fix the problem entirely, if a
1500 byte http packet is on it's way, that will still have to completely arrive
before any ssh packets can come in.  more importantly, i only control my end of
the link - i can prioritise outbound packets, but i have no control over
inbound.


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)


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