Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 02:33:14 -0500 From: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <sysop@mixcom.com> To: spork <spork@super-g.com> Cc: Vincent Poy <vince@mail.MCESTATE.COM>, isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: TS Holy War (was Re: Some advice needed.) Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970413023314.00cec4fc@mixcom.com>
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At 04:15 PM 4/12/97 -0400, spork wrote: >I've been working at an ISP for a year and a half now (which I guess isn't >all that long...) and I do chuckle somewhat upon looking at this thread. Wanna bet you learned a lot in just the first 6 months? >The number one thing I've learned so far is to not trust anyone's >estimates of cost/time that you will expend making everything work. *NO >matter WHAT* the customer base is assumed to be, you need tech support >people. We have some very intelligent customers that know a whole bunch >about their own networks and machines that call up with *very* stupid >questions... The reason is that the ISP business is a service business >first and foremost before it's a technical biz. Ask anyone who's >making money. I used to have to field calls, and even now, I'll be >working along on schedule and get some panicked customer going nuts that >pulls me off of a project and ruins my day. Hehe. I take some normal tech calls or should say take over, but then I am working on something and want to see if they are being effected by something new or some tweaking. Still some people expect our techs to help them with *any* problem. One person can't fax?! And... >We started with absolute crap equipment (not my choice, BTW) and it came >very close to bringing the company down. Your competition can afford real >modems and term servers that connect 99% of the time and give a nice >healthy thruput. You need that too. Any luser can see if ISP A is >"faster" than ISP B with no technical knowledge involved. Stand alone >modems are a fast ticket to troubleshooting hell. The thing here as well is your provider(s). Network problems and latency that affects you, but the "other" guy is running smooth... >As for servers, seperate everything from the get-go. Put mail on one >machine, shell on another, and web on another. I was around for a >migration from one machine to 12, and it wasn't pretty; in fact it was a >customer service nightmare.... Why 12? How many customers and server breakdown? >I guess the bottom line is, if you're doing this as a business, have the >$$ (or a nice leasing program ;) and spare no expense where reliability is >concerned. Buy good modems (that will hopefully support some 56K crap >that your users will be calling about every day), use a solid OS like >FBSD, get Seagate drives, and go with the stand alone router (not so much >for performance, but to learn the Cisco IOS so you can talk intelligently >with other router-heads)... Leasing is not an option, unless you bank the startup money and use it as collateral and even then, if you have not been in business for at least a year "No." is the answer. Modems are the killer. At first I was very pleased with the SupraFaxModem, which allowed us to expand faster/sooner. Then the never ending beta started and I became less than pleased. Couriers? Finally got them and the change from Courier and PM2 to PM3 was easy. The PM3s are on lease and we have a $0 install fee for CT1 or PRI, as well as paying less than what we pay for POTS. I'll truely be happy when I get to tear down the modems in about a week. ------------------------------------------- Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator jeff@mixcom.net MIX Communications Serving the Internet since 1990
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