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Suicide Junkie said:
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Gandalf Parker said:
Thats why Im quite happy not using any ISP. No download limits, no email limits, no web-space limits, no restricted ports, no filtering. Its abit more headache doing it all yourself but I consider that fun. I guess its like guys who work on their own cars, or make their own furniture.
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How would you start going about doing that and connecting to the net? (Generically in general)
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Understand that ISP (Internet Services Providor) is not the same as Internet Connectivity. Most Users are stuck in a horrible situation because they dont realize that the internet is setup so that none of your services HAVE to come from the same source. Often those that do one thing well, suck at the rest, so an all-in-one package usually sucks as soon as you start using more than one of its services.
PacBell (the phone company) does my DSL line. Thats just another phone line and they do that well (the same goes for cable and satellite connections). But their internet services suck. So for most Users I tell them to find some nice local trying-hard internet service to handle the rest (email, web, dns, hosting, etc etc). They usually do better at that and have problems with the connectivity part. You can even take it a step farther and use different companies for each service.
In my case I just grabbed an old computer out of the closet that wouldnt run the latest games anymore, loaded linux on it, and a domain name, and setup all the services I wanted. Now I point my windows email programs there for send and pickup, I put all my web stuff there, I have my own dns server and dont share it much so my browsing and such is much faster. Im up to 6 domains for me and my friends, looks like Im up to about 70 mailboxes, and I host 2 full-time multiplayer worlds. I never have to ask the admin if I can do something on my website or add some feature, nothing I do gets ads attached to it, and one of my favorite things is automated scripts which update the offerings on the sites (such as each day creating 240 randomly generated playing maps for Dominions 2). You would be amazed. You can be 100 times more of an ISP for yourself with a machine that is 1/10th the computer you are using for a desktop now. You can easily run a 300 member ISP on a machine that costs less than $200(american), and 3000 with the computer you tossed in the closet.
But all of this reminds me of my gandfather-in-law who preached to me about how much money I could save if I just learned to do simple car maintenance. My answer to him was "its only worthwhile if you like doing it, otherwise its worthwhile to pay someone else to do it for you". Same here. If it sounds like fun, then go for it. But at least consider that you dont HAVE to use the services that your connector provides.