Speakeasy’s max allowable distance from the C.O. is 15,000 feet. Our new house is 14,600. Line speed drops with distance, so we’re on the outer limit for acceptable DSL service. Jacked in yesterday (no phone jack in new office, ethernet across the kitchen floor for now) and was pleasantly surprised – very snappy and we might have gotten lucky. Still need to do careful upstream testing — if too slow, will have to rethink birdhouse hosting. Three possibilities to solve: home T1, put server in colo, drop the business altogether. There had to be a gremlin in the bush.
Tilting at windmills for a better tomorrow.
I know that here in Boston I orignally went with DSL (1.5M/384K)for the “non-shared connection” advantages. When we moved in March I talked it over with the Roomies and we decided to give Cable Modem a swing. We found that not only is the Cable Modem cheaper, but it is just as fast or faster than the DSL we used for a year.
Perhaps one of those “Business Cable Modem” plans would work for you…
Sean, are you able to get static IP(s)? How is the upstream bandwidth? Any restrictions on types of servers you can run?
The trouble is, I don’t think we ever got the BW we were paying for from Verizon DSL. Our upstream is OK, but seems slow at times…
The other trouble with Cable Modem is that offerings change from provider to provider (and even region to region within a provider), so whatever services we get out here probably won’t make a difference to you.
You should just look at the local cable providers site and see what their offerings are for your area… For all I know they might not even offer business service.
We are with Comcast cable (ex-AT&T) and we are quite happy with them in Foster City, CA. We don’t have downtimes (maybe a few minutes per month when they do some work locally), download speed always maxes out at 256 KB/sec (they seem to throttle it per household at that speed), while upload speed is about 30-35 KB/sec.
Regarding static IPs, I think IPs do change every week or so (not sure exactly every how many days).
“We don’t have downtimes (maybe a few minutes per month when they do some work locally)”
That sounds like unacceptable downtime to me. Certainly not good if you’re in the hosting biz. My Verizon DSL has been offline a total of two, short times in two YEARS.
Nothing wrong with cable modems for casual, home use I suppose – but not for anything even close to “business.” That needs DSL at a minimum (perhaps a business-grade DSL with greater upstream bandwidth and a QoS agreement with the telco).
And before anyone asks, yes I *am* a professional network geek ;)
Sean, it looks like Comcast, our cable provider, offers a “Pro” version with 5 static IPs and greater bandwidth. But with caveats. They say the “static” IPs can shift “periodically” with no details on what they mean by “periodically.” Doesn’t sound too static to me. And the upstream is still limited to 384, which is half what I had in Berkeley. Have asked them for details, will let you know what I find out.
Eugenia, I guess that’s the consumer service — the 35k upstream would be way too slow to do anything useful with. Although if I decide to go colo, it would still be nice to have TV and internet be integrated into one service.
That sounds like unacceptable downtime to me. Certainly not good if you’re in the hosting biz. My Verizon DSL has been offline a total of two, short times in two YEARS.
David –
FWIW, my Verizon DSL in my last apartment was down more than my Comcast Cable Modem (DSL was down avg of 8 hours a month, usually in one stretch. Cable Modem occasionally bounces up/down every couple of weeks, but it is for seconds.
Scot –
Eugenia said 35KB/sec not 35Kb/sec, just to be clear… My guess is that she has the same 384k upstream that Comcast pimped to you.
Ah, duh… K vs. k. Serves me right for typing on way out of house…